


Only Human

by Fenris



Category: Nurse Jackie (TV), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Crossover (Watchmen/Nurse Jackie), Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Nosocomephobia, Pre-Roche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2011-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 37,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenris/pseuds/Fenris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rorschach comes down with a common ordinary ailment that can't be ignored or overcome through sheer willpower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the [Watchmen Kinkmeme](http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/4155.html).  
> Work in progress.
> 
> Just a warning for anyone who might be checking this story out because of the Nurse Jackie crossover; although it is a WM/NJ crossover and there are parts of the story that are written from the POV of the NJ characters, this is primarily a Watchmen story and focuses mainly on the Watchmen characters. So if you're unfamiliar with Watchmen or it's not your cup of tea, you might want to pass this one by. If you want to read it anyway, fabulous! I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> One more thing: Since Nurse Jackie takes place in 2009, the laws of space and time had to be soundly violated in order to allow the crossover. As a result, in this AU the events of Nurse Jackie take place forty years earlier, which means late 1960s technology (and attitudes).

It began as just another night on the job for them, nothing special. A little successful interrogation-slash-intimidation in a seedy bar resulted in the time and place of an upcoming drug deal.

And so, at 1:35 am on a Wednesday night Nite Owl and his partner Rorschach found themselves in their element facing eight very pissed off gang members who felt righteously indignant about their normal commerce being interrupted by a couple of costumed freaks. The freaks in question proceeded to explain, using extreme physical examples, the immorality of selling large amounts of heroin in their city at such an ungodly and inconsiderate hour. All in all, it was a great bout of exercise for both vigilantes, and fun as hell.

Nite Owl in particular was enjoying himself--five of them had immediately gone for him, marking him as the larger (correct), more dangerous (incorrect) target. However, his opponents weren't great fighters; more enthusiastic than skilled, they were typical young gang snots. Dangerous enough when fighting one of their fellow punks over a girl or who got to snort up the last line of powder, but not much of a challenge for Nite Owl. Barely one minute into the fight, he was already down to two.

He grabbed one of his remaining adversaries by the arm and swung him smartly into the wall, his head bouncing off it with a satisfying _whunk_. After that, the last one decided he'd had more than enough, thanks, did an abrupt about-face and rabbited down the alleyway.

Since the guy holding the drugs and the one holding the money were already down, Nite Owl was inclined to let him go---especially since Rorschach was still fighting and he didn't want to move out of support range. But he knew that his partner would growl at him later on (" _Sloppy form, Daniel_ ") when he found out that Dan had let one get away. So he ran a few steps after the fleeing man, picked up a heavy crate and hurled it overhand. The crate hit his quarry in the upper back and he went down, hard, into a stack of wooden pallets and didn't get back up.

Nite Owl turned to check on his partner, and smiled. All three of Rorschach's gang members were still up and fighting, which meant that his partner was deliberately stretching things out. Ready to step in if necessary, Dan allowed himself the brief indulgence of watching Rorschach's opponents come to the realization that instead of overwhelming a single target in a blind alley with superior force, the fight was turning out to be more like being shut in a small room with an angry bobcat.

It never got old, watching his partner fight; and something inside Dan still glowed with pride whenever he thought about the fact that he was the one Rorschach had chosen to partner up with. It was always such a damn revelation the way the compact man moved among his opponents; flowing like water, smooth and deadly, never a wasted motion. He was simply several places at once or seemed like it, doling out punches and kicks with scientific precision and using whatever came to hand as a weapon, all angry, intense grace. And sometimes, like now, there was an almost playful element when he took his time and slowly wore his opponents down instead of tearing through them like a pocket thunderbolt.

He saw one of Rorschach's antagonists step back and reach into his jacket. At that, Nite Owl jumped forward, plucking a throwing crescent off his belt. If a gun was coming into play, all bets were off.

" _Well, that's different_ ", he thought when the man pulled out not a gun (as he'd feared), but a short-handled sledgehammer. And he could use it, too. As Rorschach swept the legs out from under one of his other opponents then jumped up to deliver a really pretty spinning back kick to another, the man with the sledge did his own half-spin, winding up momentum. The hammer caught Rorschach low in his midsection, disappearing into the folds of the vigilante's trench coat. The strike landed slightly off target---it had been meant as a groin shot, but landed too high---but was still a solid blow with enough force to double Rorschach over and knock him off his feet.

As his partner went down, Nite Owl slammed into the hammer wielder, knocking him off his feet in turn and sending both of them crashing into a pile of crates and other trash. Rorschach bounced back up to his feet with a snarl. Seeing that his partner was already unleashing a barrage of blows on his previous opponent, Rorschach turned and dispatched his remaining two foes with quick and brutal efficiency, any trace of playfulness now gone.

They finished tying up the last criminal, Nite Owl using a throwing crescent to pin the paper bearing Rorschach's signature to his grubby leather jacket. Dan noticed the care with which his partner held himself as he stood up. As soon as they were out of earshot, heading down the street to a pay phone to call their bust in to the police he reached out and put his hand on Rorschach’s back, noticing that his partner was walking a little stiffly.

"Hey, are you all right? Thor got in a pretty solid hit on you with Mjolnir back there."

"Nrgh." Rorschach stretched, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. "Just bruised, will be fine in a day or two. Could have been worse."

"You're telling me. He came pretty close back there to turning you into a soprano, you know."

Rorschach made a disgusted sound.

"Don't need to indulge in rude speculation, Daniel." He straightened up, all signs of discomfort gone and walked more briskly, signaling that the conversation was over as far as he was concerned.


	2. Chapter 2

The night after next found them in the familiar position of sitting at Dan's kitchen table after patrol was done, eating from cartons of Chinese takeout, notebooks and maps with complicated patterns of black and red ink spider-webbed across them spread over the table. They talked intensely, making new notations and jotting down ideas, swapping opinions on the next move in their plans to bring down a huge heroin ring and simply enjoying each other’s company.

As the sky started growing light outside, Dan found himself taking the lead more and more in conversation. Also, he noticed that Rorschach hadn't eaten much at all, which was highly unusual. Normally after patrol, Rorschach would wolf down enough food for two people.

Realizing that the other man hadn't said a word for more than ten minutes, Dan put down his pen and took a hard look at his partner. On the other side of the table, Rorschach was slumped down in his chair, chin resting on his chest, arms crossed over his stomach. _"Geez, he's falling asleep on me--poor guy. He must be exhausted, and here I am going on about raiding strategy."_

He leaned over and gently tapped Rorschach's forearm, triggering a quick intake of breath from the other man. The mask jerked up, ink spots shifting rapidly as Rorschach shook himself. Dan smiled at him. "It's pretty late, let's call it a night. Morning, really. Anyway why don't you stay here and get a little sleep before you---" He stopped as Rorschach's chair scraped back across the floor and his partner stood up suddenly, posture stiff, obviously agitated. Before Dan could ask what was wrong, Rorschach turned and walked quickly out of the kitchen.

Footsteps retreated down the hallway and Dan heard the bathroom door open and shut. Concerned, he followed into the hall where he heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting coming from behind the closed bathroom door.

 _Oh shit, he's sick---or he ate something bad_. Dan stopped outside the bathroom door and hesitated, reluctant to intrude on his friend’s distress. Rorschach wasn’t the type to appreciate having someone come in to hold his head while he puked; he was far more likely to punch Dan out for intruding on him at such an embarrassingly vulnerable moment.

After the coughing and retching subsided, Dan counted to thirty then tapped on the door. "Hey, buddy. You all right?"

Silence. He heard the toilet flush, then water running. The door opened and Rorschach emerged looking shaky, mask rucked up over his nose. What Dan could see of his face looked pale, even a little green. He moved to put a hand on his partner's arm, but Rorschach sidestepped him and walked back down the hall without a word, through the kitchen and into the living room. As he moved, Dan observed that he was walking a bit hunched over.

In the living room, Rorschach lowered himself carefully onto the couch and sat there, his arms wrapped protectively around his midriff. Dan followed him and stood in front of the couch, looking down at the smaller man. Rorschach looked up at him and Dan noticed that the black areas on his mask were much wider than usual. That meant his partner was either blushing (unlikely), very angry (possible), or feverish (likely). Dan frowned.

"What’s going on? Do you think you could have eaten something that went bad? Or are you coming down with a virus, maybe?"

His partner shrugged and waved the notion off. The gesture was casual but his body language, in which Dan was very fluent by now, said " _am completely miserable, Daniel_ ".

Dan stood in front of him, not moving. "Come on man, what’s going on?"

Rorschach held out for another minute of silence, then finally huffed in annoyance and growled up at Dan. "Not sure. Stomach hurts, feel cold." He hesitated, then sighed and admitted reluctantly, "Probably coming down sick."

 _No shit, Sherlock_ , Dan thought, but didn’t say it. Instead, he put his hands on Rorschach’s shoulders and gently maneuvered him sideways, saying, "All right, here. Lie down for a while and rest. I’ll get some blankets and something to help settle your stomach, okay?"

Rorschach didn’t even put up a token struggle. Instead he simply lay down on the couch as bidden, which worried Dan. He placed his hand on Rorschach’s forehead, frowning at the warmth he felt radiating through the latex. He realized that his partner was shivering lightly and his frown deepened.

"Yeah, you’re running a fever all right. That settles that, you’re going to stay here and get a little rest." Still no resistance, just a small nod of assent from the other man and now Dan was really getting worried. He noticed that his friend’s legs were drawn up a little and his arms were still crossed protectively over his stomach. A small alarm bell went off in Dan’s mind.

 _Oh boy. Oh, no. Don’t even think it._

Dan stepped back, one hand held lightly over his mouth, brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. Shifting uncomfortably on the couch, Rorschach tilted his head to look at him. After a few moments, he grunted in irritation. "Hrhn. Daniel, what?"

Dan started to say something, hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't know, I need to go look something up. Stay right there. Please. I mean it."

Rorschach grunted dismissively, but instead of getting up he settled a bit deeper into the couch. Satisfied for the moment, Dan went into his library, searched for and found the book he wanted and slowly walked back into the living room, flipping through pages as he went.

 _Fever, nausea, abdominal pain, abdominal guarding...shit. Shit, shit, shit._

Rorschach waited for Daniel to come back, grumbling and shifting around as he tried to find a comfortable position on the couch. Picking at a frayed spot on the heavy brocade material as he waited, he knew he should just get up and leave before Daniel returned. Then he could make his way back to his own apartment and sleep off whatever stomach virus had moved into his body without so much as a by-your-leave.

He could feel illness starting to take hold of him, feverish claws sinking into his body to accompany and accentuate the growing pain in his belly. But before he could decide whether to make a break for freedom, Daniel came back carrying a large hardcover book. From the caduceus embossed on the cover, Rorschach deduced it was some type of medical reference.

Acknowledging that his best chance to flee was gone, Rorschach gave up and lay quietly on the couch, head propped up on a throw pillow, and watched his partner read. Daniel settled into the armchair closest to the couch and read for several minutes, frowning in concentration. Rorschach really didn't like the way the other man's expression became darker and increasingly worried as he read.

Finally, Daniel put the book down and turned to Rorschach, who suddenly had a renewed impulse to sprint for the door. Only the realization of how unlikely he was to actually make good his escape in his debilitated condition (and the humiliating prospect of being physically dragged back to the couch by his partner) kept him from bolting. Bracing himself for conflict, he watched suspiciously as Daniel approached him.


	3. Chapter 3

Dan stopped beside the couch and leaned down, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder and massaging it a little. He was unable to keep the nervousness out of his voice when he spoke. "Bear with me for a minute buddy, OK? You're not going to like this, but I need to check something."

He knew that Rorschach's aversion to being touched without two or more layers of clothing intervening was going to be the least of his problems if it turned out that he was right about what was wrong with his partner. But before he launched into a discussion that he was already dreading, Dan needed to be really, really sure that said discussion had to happen.

He knelt down in front of the couch and started untying the belt of Rorschach's trench coat. This brought Rorschach immediately up off the couch, grabbing Dan's wrists and immobilizing them. Dan tried not to wince too obviously.

"Daniel. What are you doing?"

"Look, just trust me, all right? I'm not going to steal your coat. I told you that I need to check something and it's going to involve you taking off your coat and jacket and opening up your shirt. I will not handle you any more than I absolutely have to and I promise I will still respect you tomorrow. Now knock it off." Rorschach seemed nonplussed at that, and at the sudden steely tone in his partner’s voice. After a long moment, he released Dan's wrists and slowly reclined again.

Dan carefully opened up the trench coat and unbuttoned the pinstriped suit jacket and vest, feeling disturbingly like he was opening up layers of skin as he did. The way that Rorschach tensed up and even flinched a little once or twice did nothing to dispel the illusion that he was somehow peeling hide, not clothing, away from his partner. Finally, Dan was pushing up the worn, graying undershirt to reveal the pale freckled skin of his partner’s cleanly muscled torso.

Very aware that he was now severely pushing the boundaries of whatever liberties Rorschach would allow him with his person, Dan unbuckled his partner’s belt and undid the top button of his trousers, trying hard to ignore the odd, indefinable coil of warm electricity that settled in the pit of his stomach as his fingertips brushed the hot skin of the other man’s abdomen. _Not the time, not the place, don’t even think about it_ , he scolded himself.

"Alright, none of your usual ‘I'm fine, Daniel, it doesn't hurt’ crap. You need to be honest with me--where’s your stomach pain located? Does it hurt around here?" He pointed to an area slightly below his friend’s navel. Swallowing nervously, Rorschach nodded.

Ignoring the hitch of breath and the way the other man's body tensed up when he touched his skin, Dan carefully placed his fingers beside Rorschach's navel, then slowly moved his fingertips down several inches to the right and stopped on a particular area of the other man's abdomen. He looked up into the shifting black and white patterns that hid his friend’s real face. "OK, now tell me if this hurts." He pressed in firmly, waited a moment. "Did that hurt?"

Rorschach shook his head, obviously puzzled. "No. Feels fine. Daniel, what are you--"

Dan nodded, then suddenly removed the pressure. As he took his hand away, Rorschach sucked in a sharp breath and let it out in an exclamation of pain that he was only partially successful in muffling. At the strangled noise his friend made, Dan nodded, looking suddenly grim and rather scared. "OK, just one more thing, OK? Let me check one more thing, please."

From the way Rorschach's body had gone completely rigid and his fists were clenching and unclenching hard enough to make the glove leather creak, Dan suspected he'd be lucky to get away with this next intrusion on his friend's personal space without catching a punch in the head for it. But he needed to be absolutely sure about this before voicing his conclusions.

He stood partway up, took Rorschach's right ankle in a firm grip and stepped back slowly, stretching the other man's leg until it was out straight. When the leg was fully extended he leaned back a bit, pulling on it.

 _"Gnnh!"_

Gloved hands shot out and grabbed at the couch, leather fingers digging deep into the cushions. Rorschach sat halfway up, growling through gritted teeth, "Daniel, _stop!_ "

Immediately Dan stopped pulling and moved in, folding the leg up and flexing the knee in toward his friend's chest. "Sorry, I’m sorry. Does that feel better?"

Rorschach's shoulders relaxed a bit and he nodded. Then he leaned forward and reached out to grab a handful of Dan's shirt and hauled him down to the prone man's level until they were almost nose-to-nose.

" _Not_ comfortable, Daniel. Point to all of this?"

Dan sighed, and sat down on the edge of the couch, placing his own hand over the gloved one that still gripped his shirt. "Rorschach...you've never had your appendix taken out, have you?"

The hand let go as if Dan's shirt had dispensed an electric shock. His partner's sudden stillness was all the answer he needed. Dan held onto the gloved hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm sorry. I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need to get you to an emergency room. I'm pretty sure you have appendicitis. In fact, I--I think you might have a ruptured appendix."

Rorschach lay stock still, silent and unmoving as he listened. Dan continued nervously, "You took a pretty hard hit in the gut the other night from that guy with the sledgehammer, I saw it. The medical text says that abdominal trauma can bring on an attack. But regardless of what caused it, we need to get you to a hospital, this is a real emergency."

Rorschach shook his head and growled, sounding incensed that Dan would say anything that stupid. "Can't go to a hospital, Daniel. Don’t trust them. Need to keep my identity hidden, uncompromised, you know that."

Shaking his head, Dan sighed and stood up. He had expected no less than this reaction and was already thinking of how to get around his partner’s objections in the least amount of time. "You'll have to leave it all here, I'll keep it safe for you. You can borrow some of my clothes."

Dan desperately cast around in his mind for the right argument that would get his friend to see reason and get them into the nearest emergency room. "Rorschach, there's no way around this. A bad appendix doesn't fix itself. You need surgery to remove it before it ruptures. And I'm kind of afraid that yours might have already ruptured. If it has, you need to be operated on immediately."

"Do it here. You have medical training."

Dan stared at the man on his couch, positive that he hadn't heard that last bit correctly. "What?"

"You heard me, do it here. Won't go to a hospital, can't trust them. Don’t know what kind of drugs they could put into me, what they might implant. What they might _remove_." He shook his head at Dan. "Just do it here." Rorschach looked at him expectantly, the set of his shoulders saying, " _Problem solved, Daniel_ ".

Dan closed his eyes, at a complete loss for what to say. His face grew paler as the words sank in. Almost a full minute ticked by in silence as Dan processed his partner’s request. Then color started to rise, flushing his cheeks. At that point he found something to say. Rather a lot, actually.

"OK, for starters I haven't got the right equipment. I have no anesthesia, and even if I did I'd probably give you too much. I have no real medical training past my EMT certificate, which does not qualify me to be an anesthesiologist or to do major surgery." As he spoke, Dan ticked the points off on his fingers for emphasis.

Rorschach shook his head impatiently. "Don't need anesthesia, just go ahead and do it." He nodded at the book Dan had placed on the side table. "Enough information in there. I trust you."

Dan's jaw dropped. As much as it pleased him any time he heard Rorschach say that he trusted him, everything else coming out of his mouth right now was so outlandish that Dan had to wonder if this was some type of Rorschach-only humor. He couldn't possibly be serious.

Then he realized that this was _Rorschach_ , and he absolutely _could_ be serious about this. His lunatic of a partner was actually suggesting that Dan perform major surgery on him, on his kitchen table, with no anesthesia and an emergency first aid kit as his equipment.

Rage flooded through him, making his head feel light and weirdly fizzy, like soda pop was expanding inside his skull. If he hadn't been so furious, he might have found the sensation interesting. Eyes narrowing, he leaned down slowly until his face was almost touching Rorschach's and spoke directly into the ink patterns over his partner's eyes. It began as a soft, intense whisper, but quickly escalated until he was shouting into the other man's face.

"I have taped up your broken ribs. I have splinted your broken fingers. I have dug bullets out of you. I have popped your dislocated shoulder back into joint three times, and _I have stitched you up more times than I can count, but_ I AM NOT PERFORMING AN APPENDECTOMY ON YOU IN MY KITCHEN!!!"

"I am not going to let you refuse to seek medical attention because you are too stubborn or scared of being poisoned by aspirin or held hostage by a left-wing Zionist medical cabal to set foot in a hospital!!! I AM NOT GOING TO SIT HERE AND WATCH YOU DIE OF PERITONITUS ON MY COUCH, THEN BURY YOU IN SECRET IN MY BACKYARD LIKE A GODDAMN DEAD CHIPMUNK!!!!!"

Part of him realized that he was now screaming directly into Rorschach’s face, so close that the force of his shouting was creating tiny patterns of ink spatter across his partner's mask. Part of him also realized that this was an excellent way to find himself hitting the floor with a broken nose. But right then he was far, far beyond caring. He gripped Rorschach's head in both hands, shaking it a little.

" _None_ of that’s going to happen, do you hear me? What IS going to happen is you’re going to let me take you to the hospital so they can save your damn life!! SAY YOU UNDERSTAND ME, GODDAMN IT!! SAY IT!!"

Dan realized that right now he was the crazy one, ranting like this at a man who, even while lying sick on his couch, was more than capable of summoning enough energy to hand Dan his ass on a platter with a side of french fries five times over. He let go, straightened up, turned his back and walked away from the couch, snapping bitterly over his shoulder, "Look, you don't have to compromise your identity with me--I'll give you some clothes you can change into, I’ll call an ambulance and I'll let them in. I'll just tell them which room you're in. I won't look at you when they take you out. You don't even have to tell me where they take you--well, you do have to, actually, since I need to know which hospital to pay--but you can make up any damn name you want and I _swear_ I won't look at you..."

He was so caught up in his angry spiel that he didn't hear the first quiet "Daniel". Then his name was said again, with more force.

" _Daniel!_ "

Dan turned and took a shocked half-step back. His partner looked back at him from the couch, bare-faced, mask held in his lap between two nervously twisting hands.


	4. Chapter 4

He had an Irish dockworker's face. Course rough-hewn features, pug nose and ears that stuck out a mile, unkempt curly red hair and, incongruously, piercing light blue-gray eyes. Rorschach’s intense gaze held Dan's for a moment, then his eyes shifted away and he looked down at the floor, his mouth settling into a thin, hard line. His hands continued to work the mask, twisting it between restless fingers.

Dan forgot the current emergency, forgot everything for the moment, in the fascination and wonder of finally seeing his partner’s face after four years of talking to a mask.

He already knew about the red hair, of course, because of the many times he’d seen his partner’s skin while patching up injuries; there were just too many freckles scattered across his arms, shoulders and back and his skin was too pale for him to be anything but a redhead. (And once or twice he’d plucked a coppery strand or two from the towels Rorschach left on the bathroom floor after showering at Dan’s house.)

Dan knew that he was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. He’d wanted this for such a long time, to be able to put a human face to the rusty voice and dynamic figure. To be able to think to himself _"This is my partner, my best friend_ " and be able to pull up a real person’s face in his mind’s eye when he did.

And the sheer relief that Rorschach had such a normal face was overwhelming. Dan had more than half-convinced himself that his partner was horribly scarred or malformed in some way around his eyes or forehead. He’d honestly been a little afraid that if Rorschach ever did unmask that he’d be unable to keep himself from reacting badly. But his face was fine; it was perfectly normal. And while he didn’t have a classically handsome face by any means, it was certainly an interesting one.

He realized that Rorschach was still staring at the floor, looking tense and apprehensive, as if he expected Dan to recoil in disgust or to start shouting at him.

***

After meeting Daniel’s eyes, Rorschach’s nerve failed him and his gaze dropped down to the floor to avoid seeing the inevitable confusion and disappointment on Daniel’s face.

He didn’t know what Daniel had expected him to look like, but he must have expected more than the ridiculous face in front of him now. Certainly someone with more dignity. He knew that Daniel was bound to lose some respect for him now that he knew what Rorschach was hiding under the mask.

Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that part of the real reason he’d resisted unmasking for Daniel was that he hadn’t wanted to expose Walter’s ugly face, preferring to let Daniel think that his partner had a face to match Rorschach’s image. Rorschach’s appearance had a grim style and elegance that sat well with Walter. That was the image he’d wanted in Daniel’s mind, not the image of Walter Kovacs.

Walter knew what he looked like. He knew that one of his nicknames at Charlton had been "Howdy Doody Time" (although after he’d blackened a few eyes, bloodied a few noses and knocked out one tooth, the name had mostly been bandied around behind his back).

And how quickly would the fear and respect that Rorschach engendered in the underworld evaporate if they knew that the terrifying apparition of Rorschach was in reality a short, speckled, homely man who looked like a surly overgrown ten year old? Nervously, he continued to roll the mask between his fingers, fighting down the growing urge to pull it back on and hide his face again.

But it was simply cowardly to keep avoiding looking at Daniel. Might as well look him in the eye and get past the disappointment or disgust (or even worse, amusement, though he hoped he could at least expect Daniel not to laugh at him outright) sure to be in his partner’s eyes. He looked up at Daniel and blinked, surprised.

Daniel was smiling at him, positively grinning, and there wasn’t a hint of amusement, disdain, or ridicule in his expression. Instead he looked delighted, like a kid who’d just received the birthday present that he’d been hoping for, but never dared to think he’d actually get. There was nothing but warmth in Daniel’s eyes as he said, "It’s good to see you."

***

Rorschach looked at him, saying nothing. Dan’s grin faltered a little. Then he shook himself because regardless of anything else, they still had an emergency on their hands and Dan needed to get his partner to a hospital, right now.

"I’ll, uh, get some clothes for you to change into."

Dan went upstairs to find some clothing for Rorschach to wear. He grabbed a pair of socks and an old college t-shirt with the Institute for Field Ornithology logo on it. The shirt had always been a little small for him, which hopefully meant it wouldn’t swim too badly on his partner. The best he could find for pants was a pair of drawstring exercise pants. They would still be too large, but since they were short on Dan they at least wouldn’t drag the ground when Rorschach wore them.

Underwear? Dan paused, then shrugged and grabbed a pair of briefs. He wasn’t sure if his partner’s need to change into civilian clothes would include him wanting to not wear Rorschach’s underwear to the hospital, but might as well play it safe. He doubted that there was anything about his partner’s underwear that would identify it as belonging to Rorschach (for a moment, he envisioned his partner with a laundry marker, making little .] [. marks on the waistband of his briefs, then slapped himself mentally), but better safe than sorry.

Shoes were going to be a problem. Dan’s feet were a lot larger. Hiking boots laced up tight were the best bet to stay on securely. _He’ll have to take it all off anyway when they admit him. Oh boy, that should be fun._

"Okay, here you go. I know most of it’s too big, but it’s the best we’ve got."

As Dan placed the pile of clothing on the coffee table, he started going through a mental checklist of what he’d need to bring with him to the hospital.

***

Still stunned from the fact that Daniel had not seemed in the least put off by the sight of Walter’s face, Rorschach silently started shedding his vest and shirt.

Daniel looked around, patted his pockets and muttered, "Okay, wallet, house keys...oops, checkbook. I’ll need my checkbook, be right back." He left the room, still talking to himself.

 _Money._

Of course, hospitals were expensive. Whether he survived this or not, whatever they did to him would have a massive price tag attached to it. He’d heard stories, mostly at his workplace, of uninsured or underinsured families being wiped out by medical debt.

Rorschach knew Daniel had money, but he wasn’t sure he had _that_ kind of money. He had no idea how astronomically high his medical bill might become. It was one thing to raid his partner’s refrigerator and pantry for food and occasionally steal a bottle of cologne or some personal item that had a connection to Daniel. It was quite another thing to allow his partner to go into debt on his behalf. He couldn’t expect Daniel to pay for this, especially when he didn’t need to.

He closed his eyes again and fought down a new wave of nausea, wishing his head would stop aching and the pain in his abdomen would subside for just a few minutes so he could think clearly. Concentrating on feeling his face threading through his fingers, he took some strength from the sensation of the slick, familiar material against his hands.

The ingrained habit of years of secrecy and his distrust of the entire human race in general had kept him silent about his identity up until now. But this was _Daniel_. The only person in the world who’d ever actually sought out his company, the only one who cared whether he lived or died, or was unhappy, hungry or in pain. The only person who had ever made any attempt to protect him, as ludicrous as the idea of that was. He had no idea what he’d ever done to deserve it, but Daniel was his friend, his only real friend.

Rorschach knew this, although he did his best to avoid thinking too much about it because the notion of someone who felt affection for him (and even more disturbing, the notion of someone for whom he felt warmth in return) was unexpected and confusing and frankly a little terrifying. When he thought about it, though, it really wasn’t such a tremendous leap from showing Daniel his face to this next thing. The worst of it was over. Daniel knew what he really looked like. Daniel was trustworthy; he deserved this, too.

When Daniel came back into the room, tucking a slim black leather checkbook inside his suit jacket, Walter drew a deep breath and came to the only decision he could make.

***

The raspy voice was so low Dan had to strain to hear it. "Sorry, what did you say?"

Rorschach cleared his throat and spoke a bit more audibly. "Checkbook isn’t necessary, Daniel. I have insurance." At Dan's incredulous look, he huffed and reluctantly elaborated, "Have medical insurance through my day job."

 _Day job._

Wow. Well that explained the evenings when Rorschach was struggling to hide the fact that he was dead on his feet, and the times he’d fallen asleep in Archie on the way back home from patrolling. It also explained why, on the rare occasions when Dan persuaded him to sleep at the Nest instead of setting out for wherever it was that he lived, that he was always up and gone by six a.m.

"Need to use your phone, Daniel. Have to...call work, get my insurance information."

Dan felt the familiar faint embarrassment that he always felt when confronted with the fact that most people had to worry about money, had to hold steady jobs in order to make a living.

He’d never really given any serious thought to how Rorschach lived day to day. If he thought about it at all, he supposed that his friend either had an inheritance that he lived off of, or had some sort of job that didn’t require regular work hours, such as freelance writing or being an artist of some sort. He had never imagined Rorschach to have anything as mundane as a nine-to-five Monday through Friday job.

"Yeah, of course." Dan handed him the phone.

Leaving his partner to call in sick to work and finish changing in privacy, Dan left the living room to go upstairs and change his own clothes.

Rorschach was wearing Dan’s clothes and talking on the phone when he came back, scribbling information on the back of an envelope. He hung up the phone and looked at Dan, his face very serious. Rorschach closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked directly into Dan’s eyes and said,

"Walter" He hesitated, then added "Kovacs."

And ridiculously, he held out his hand, like they’d just been introduced at a board meeting. Only Dan didn’t find it ridiculous at all, and he swallowed down a hot bubble of something in his throat as he took the other man’s hand eagerly in his own and his stupid grin resurfaced.

"Pleased to meet you." Dan felt a little silly as he said it, but the flash of warmth in the icy eyes (another surge of something hot in his throat; his _eyes_ ) and the faintest ghost of a smile made him realize it was the right thing to say as Rorschach gripped his hand in return, evoking the familiarity of a hundred other such gestures, the only type of embrace they had ever freely allowed themselves.

Rorschach refused to do anything else until Dan had taken his uniform and mask downstairs to be stored safely inside Archie. When that was done, Dan opened up the phone book and started leafing through the yellow pages at the back.

"All right, the closest hospital is---"

"Catholic hospital, Daniel."

Nonplussed, Dan stared at Rorschach ( _Walter_ , he was going to have to watch that) for a moment. "Uh, okay... I’ll find out which one’s closest."

 _Huh._ Dan wondered what that was all about. As far as he knew, Rorschach didn’t subscribe to any particular faith although he seemed very educated about religion; Dan had had a few discussions with his partner that surprised him with their depth. It was obviously something Rorschach had studied at some point. But his knowledge had all seemed academic to Dan; he never got the impression that there was any real faith behind it. And he’d heard his partner come out with some pretty harsh criticisms of the Vatican.

"Can I ask? Why a Catholic hospital?"

"Less likely than state or government funded hospitals to be participating in covert unethical medical research or black market organ sales. Also, less instances of fatal accidents or doctors performing the wrong operation on a patient."

Dan opened his mouth to argue, and then snapped it shut and nodded. "You got it. I’ll, uh, find the nearest one."

 _Well. Okay then. I did ask. Wonder where he got that from?_

Dan shook his head, imagining a very young Walter’s mother telling him, "Now remember sweetheart, look both ways before crossing the street. Never cross against the light. And if you do get hit by a car, tell them to take you to a Catholic hospital, they’re least likely to remove your corneas and kidneys to sell on the black market."


	5. Chapter 5

Dan initially thought about calling for an ambulance, but decided against it. He wasn't positive that they'd allow him to ride along, and sending his partner off alone in an ambulance with several unsuspecting EMTs seemed like a really poor idea. He figured that a cab was far less likely to spook Rorschach, who was looking increasingly squirrelly as the minutes ticked by.

Years of living in the city without owning a car had made Dan an expert on which cab companies were fastest to respond, and which ones would take him seriously when he offered a fifty dollar bonus if the cab got to his house within fifteen minutes. This time, he called and offered a hundred dollar bonus if they could get a cab to his place in under ten minutes.

Eight minutes after he'd hung up the phone, a Promethean cab was honking out in front of the brownstone.

As they walked down the hall toward the front door, Dan followed close behind his partner. Perhaps it was the fact that Rorschach was walking slightly bent over that accentuated it, but it struck Dan more than ever before how, well, _tiny_ his partner was without the added bulk of Rorschach's outfit filling out his frame. Not skinny, just very small and compact. The drawstring pants had been a good choice. As it was, they still hung loose, but any of Dan's other slacks or jeans would have simply fallen off those narrow hips.

It was only the first week of April, but it was already warm outside at a quarter to eight, so Dan didn't bother to grab coats. As they descended the steps to the sidewalk, a sweet smell from the clouds of pink and white cherry blossoms that still covered the small trees planted on either side of the steps hung heavy in his nose, blotting out everything else for a moment. Then it was gone, replaced by the more familiar city smells, the faint odor of exhaust being foremost.

Rorschach hesitated before getting in the cab and Dan tensed, because this was a point at which things could go south in a flash if his partner decided that he would really rather run after all. Despite the obvious pain he was in, Dan had no doubt that the other man could still muster up a considerable burst of speed.

But he didn't bolt. Instead he got into the cab and tucked himself into the far corner of the back seat, tense and pale, looking like he was trying to sink through the leather upholstery. Vastly relieved, Dan got in after him and spoke to the driver, urgency making his voice sharper than usual.

"All Saints Hospital. It's an emergency, get us there as fast as you can."

The driver, a tired-looking young woman with Mia Farrow-style short blonde hair looked back over her shoulder at them, her eyes coming to rest on Walter's pale, sweaty face. "You got it, mister. But if he's going to upchuck, you warn me so I can pull over, all right? I don't need to be cleaning puke out of the back of my cab for the rest of the day, you know? Get enough of that after the bars let out."

As the cab sped down the street weaving expertly through the morning traffic, Dan noticed that Rorschach's head was turned away and his shoulders were shaking. Appalled, Dan was just about to put a reassuring arm around him when he heard a rough sound that he'd only heard a few times before. He realized with surprise that his partner was quietly laughing. Dan gently nudged his friend's elbow. "Hey. What's so funny?"

Rorschach turned and looked at him, his thin lips still curved slightly. He met Dan's puzzled look and said in a low voice, "Dead chipmunk, Daniel?"

Dan grinned at him, still a little giddy with relief that they were actually on their way to an emergency room, and murmured back, "Yeah, I'm really glad you agreed to go to the hospital. I have no idea where I'd have found a shoebox that big."

Rorschach snorted, and this time Dan actually saw a tiny smile cross his partner's face. Then he grimaced and curled in on himself, eyes squeezing shut.

This time Dan did move over and slide an arm around his shoulders. And was surprised yet again when Rorschach drew in a shaky breath and leaned into him instead of stiffening up or drawing away, which is what would have happened on any normal day. His partner exhaled a long shuddering breath and stayed pressed against Dan's side, his eyes closed.

Rorschach ( _Walter, damn it. I'm really going to have to watch myself_ ) closed his hand tight around Dan's wrist. He spoke so quietly that Dan had to strain to hear it, but there was no mistaking the fear in his voice.

"Daniel. Listen to me." He squeezed Dan's wrist and shook it a little for emphasis. "Make sure that they don't take anything else out of me. It happens all the time, doctors take the wrong organ out, remove a healthy limb."

And Dan finally got it, or was pretty sure that he did. He realized that he actually wasn't that far off from the truth earlier when he was ranting at his partner.

 _He's not just scared of going to the hospital, he's scared shitless of going to the hospital. I wonder what happened to him? I can't imagine, he's never afraid of anything except fluoridated water, or expressing any human emotion other than rage, or not being in control of what happens to...oh._

He thought he understood now. Rorschach, who trusted no one other than Dan (and Dan was finally starting to understand that, too), _especially_ anyone in a position of authority, really did think that something horrible was going to happen if he let himself be taken inside a hospital, was afraid that something dreadful and unfixable would be done to him while he was unconscious and helpless.

Dan felt a powerful rush of tenderness and tightened his arm around his partner, settling him snugly against his side. He tilted his head and laid his cheek against the top of Rorschach's head, the coarse curls tickling his nose. He ached to bring his other hand up to stroke his partner's hair or even his face, but restrained himself. It was enough of a miracle that Rorschach was letting Dan hold him like this; he wasn't going to push it.

"Hey, don't worry. You'll be fine. They'll fix you up and you'll be out of there before you know it. You're so healthy, you'll heal in no time at all and before you know it we'll be back out on patrol like it never happened."

It sobered Dan to realize how serious these fears were on Rorschach's part. He was obviously genuinely scared, and Dan had to wonder yet again about his partner's background.

His partner was one of the most courageous men he'd ever met. Dan was sure that the menace hadn't been invented that Rorschach wouldn't meet with his eyes open and shoulders squared, ready to fight it head on. There was no one else he trusted more to have at his back in a fight.

And in many ways, Rorschach was the toughest, most resourceful and resilient person he'd ever known. You could drop his partner into the worst neighborhood of the most dangerous city in the world with nothing in his pockets but a flashlight, a book of matches, and a couple of paper clips and within hours every resident of that neighborhood would be crawling over each other to get away from him.

However, during the last few years he'd also slowly come to understand that in many ways Rorschach was one of the most damaged, brittle people he'd ever known. His social awkwardness and inability to deal with physical human contact (other than fighting), for example. And sometimes his ideas were just, well, bizarre. Like right now--how did a person get into the mindset where it seemed perfectly reasonable to you that hospitals were deathtraps, not places where people were cured of illness and injury?

"Where did you hear all of this stuff, anyway? Look..okay, that kind of thing might have really happened once or twice, but most of those stories are just...well, they're just stories. Something bad happens maybe once, then it gets repeated and repeated and before you know it, it's turned into an epidemic. Almost everyone I know has gone into the hospital for something at some point, and nothing like that has ever happened to them."

***

This was all happening too fast for him. First his face, then his real name, and now he was actually allowing himself to be taken to a _hospital_.

Rorschach ( _Walter. Remember, he had to be Walter now_ ) was trying very hard not to think about what would happen once they reached the hospital. As much as he didn't want to accept it, he had to admit that Daniel was almost certainly right. There was something very wrong inside of him and it was rapidly getting worse. The skin over his abdomen was hot and felt odd and stretched. His guts felt ropy and poisonous with pain, and his insides were starting to feel like they'd been boiled.

Walter felt a surge of panic and ruthlessly fought it down. He _had_ to make Daniel understand. Of course Daniel and his family or their friends had never had a problem in a hospital. Things were different if these places knew you had money or had upper class social connections, but it was all too common for ‘accidents' to happen to people whom no one would miss.

Even though they were going to a Catholic hospital, he knew there was still a strong chance that something terrible was going to happen, he was becoming more and more sure of it. Once they examined him, they would deduce from his overall condition that he wasn't someone who would be missed if he disappeared. His unmanicured hands, his self-cut hair, the teeth that had obviously never seen a dentist...and there had to be a dozen other ways that they could tell Walter was a person of no consequence. Someone who could disappear without causing a ripple.

Once Daniel left, there would be falsely soothing words and the sting of a needle, and then nothingness while the doctors cut into him and discussed where his kidneys would be sent. Or possibly some type of unimaginable poison would be pumped into his veins while men in lab coats evaluated his reactions and took notes on clipboards.

He knew that he should shrug off Daniel's arm. It was humiliating and inappropriate that he was allowing Daniel to cosset him in public like he was a frightened child. But the strength to do it just wasn't there, and the comfort derived from his friend's arm around him and the press of the broad, warm body against his own was just too needed right now. An alarming and increasingly strong part of himself wanted nothing more than to just turn into the embrace and be held, to hide his face against Daniel's chest. He settled for remaining still.

***

"We're about two minutes away, guys, hang in there," said the cabbie, her eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror to check on her passengers. Her expression said to Dan that she truly appreciated no one having vomited in the back of her cab so far, and that she hoped they could keep up this cordial relationship for the next few minutes.

Dan nodded and said "Thanks, ma'am. We're okay."

"Daniel, I..." Walter faltered, obviously struggling to get the next words out. "When...before you leave the hospital, make sure you tell them..." He stopped again, looking frustrated and anxious.

Dan had no idea of what it was that Walter wanted him to tell the doctors, but one part of what he'd just said jumped out at Dan like a beacon. Before his partner could say anything else, Dan cut him off, sounding a little indignant.

"What do you mean by ‘when I leave the hospital'? Do you think I'm just going to drop you off like a UPS package and head home to catch the ball game on TV? Sorry buddy, you're stuck with me, I'm not going anywhere."

Then he bit the inside of his lip, wondering if he might have misread the situation. Maybe Rorschach didn't want Dan there hovering over him to witness his humiliating hospitalization, his weakness? His partner had always preferred to recover from illness or injury by himself whenever possible. He might well feel the same about this, regardless of his obvious nervousness about being hospitalized.

Afraid that he might have gotten things wrong and anxious to offer a way out, Dan picked his head up to look directly down into the other man's face and hastily added, "Well, that is, you know...only if you don't mind my staying, of course. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

But he'd been right. There was no mistaking the flash of relief in Walter's eyes, or the way he felt some of the tension drain out of the compact body pressed against him.

"Thank you, Daniel. Yes, stay...please."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter, this story is now a crossover with Nurse Jackie. Of course, since Nurse Jackie takes place in 2009, in order to do this the laws of space and time had to be soundly violated. As a result, in this AU the events of Nurse Jackie take place forty years earlier, which means late 1960s hospital technology. Otherwise, all characters are the same.

The cabbie dropped them off right in front of the emergency room entrance. Dan handed the young woman the promised hundred, plus another fifty. Her grin was brilliant as she stuffed the bills in her pocket.

"Thanks, honey! Good luck with your friend. Anytime you need a ride, you call and ask for Jillian. Hey, wait!"

She grabbed a piece of paper from a notepad stuck to the dash and scribbled a number on it, then reached out to stuff it into Dan’s front pocket. "I like to go dancing at Il Mio on Saturdays. Call me sometime if you want to go, okay?"

Surprised, Dan said, "Uh…sure! Thanks." He watched her drive away, nonplussed. At his side, Walter glared after the cab and growled, "Whore. Looking for meal ticket."

Dan rolled his eyes. If his partner hadn’t been so sick, Dan would have teased him at this point by saying something like ‘Because God forbid she just thinks I’m cute or that I’m a nice guy, right?’ just to see him backpedal, flustered, and awkwardly grumble something on the order of ‘Not what I meant Daniel, didn’t mean to imply...not a comment on your...attractiveness...or... _ehnk_.’

Instead, Dan just frowned at him and shook his head, secretly encouraged that his partner still had enough energy to comment on the intrinsic evils of unduly forward women.

As they approached the emergency room doors, Walter’s pace slowed to a crawl. Impatient to get him inside, Dan itched to just drag him along but restrained himself and instead let his partner proceed at a snail’s pace. As long as they were still moving, it was okay. The doors opened and they shuffled slowly through the emergency room lobby and into the main area.

As the doors closed behind them, Dan took a look around the waiting area. It was pretty full, but not packed. As he scanned the people waiting, a few stood out; an elderly man sitting beside his wife with a red-stained wadded up dish towel pressed to his balding head, a young girl in yellow pajamas who sniffled and coughed into a wad of tissues as she sat next to her mother, a tiny baby, red-faced and screaming as its mother fruitlessly tried to soothe and shush it.

Just inside the lobby entrance was a nearly life-sized cardboard cutout of a handsome, smiling young man in a doctor’s lab coat holding a stethoscope. Below his shoes was the All Saints Hospital logo and the legend ‘If Looks Could Cure’.

 _Well, that’s just…kind of bizarre_ , Dan thought. Then he realized that Walter had stopped moving forward.

Dan turned to his partner. Walter was looking around the emergency room, his gaze darting back and forth but not resting on anything in particular. Oddly, he seemed to be sniffing the air. He was also breathing much too fast in a shaky staccato rhythm, and Dan realized that he was trembling.

 _Crap. I knew this was going too easily._

***

Walter looked around the emergency room, dismayed at how many people were there.

A door to the adjacent hallway swung open and an orderly walked through, pushing an empty gurney in front of him. The smell of disinfectant and antiseptic with an undercurrent of human sickness hit Walter and he stopped dead in his tracks and started shaking, eyes glazing over. His breathing turned rapid and shallow.

He was only vaguely aware that Daniel had stopped and was looking down at him, his brow creased with worry.

"Hey, buddy, what’s wrong? We’re here. Come on, let’s get you checked in."

Walter’s heart raced in his tightening chest. Oblivious to Daniel’s voice, he fought to suck in air past his constricting throat and tried not to gag on the hospital stink of disinfectant and illness. Smell fueled the engine of memory and returned him instantly to the last time he’d breathed those same odors more than twenty years ago.

 

 _March, 1945_

 _Walter’s mother Sylvia had a friend named Peggy who lived in the apartment below theirs. Peggy loved to talk. (So did Walter’s mother, really, just not to him.)_

 _Peggy and his mother often parked themselves on the couch in Sylvia’s living room with a bottle of gin and a bottle of Rose’s Lime Juice and talked. They sat drinking Gimlets and smoking Pall Malls and gabbed while Walter played nearby as quietly as he could (which was very quietly indeed)._

 _Much of what Peggy and his mother discussed consisted of gossip about their friends, but one of Peggy’s other favorite subjects was doctors and hospitals, neither of which she trusted. And one of her very favorite topics was telling stories about horrific mistakes made by drunk or incompetent doctors._

 _One particular afternoon when Walter was five, he was playing quietly behind the couch with his soldier dolls while Peggy told Walter’s mother a story about how a young boy had gone into the hospital last month to have his tonsils removed and how the doctor had been drunk and misread the charts, and amputated both of the boy’s legs instead. Walter had listened in mute horror, his eyes growing wider and wider, the soldiers dropping unnoticed from his lax fingers._

 _When Peggy was finished with her story and Sylvia had made the expected outraged and derogatory noises about those damned doctors, they moved on to other topics._

 _Walter sat behind the couch silent and shaking, absorbing several ideas into his five-year-old mind at once. One was the terrifying concept that his body was not a whole and inviolable entity, that pieces of it (like his legs!) could be cut off and taken away, never to return. The other concept was that hospitals were places where things like this happened, and that doctors drank and did terrible things there._

 _He remained silent for the rest of the day, to the point where his mother actually noticed as he picked listlessly at his dinner and snapped at him, "What’s wrong with you? You better not be coming down sick, that doctor’s too goddamn expensive."_

 _At the mention of the word ‘doctor’, Walter paled, muttering "M’ fine, Mom," and shoveled the rest of his dinner in with shaking hands, fighting desperately to keep it from coming right back up. When his plate was finally clean he begged in a thin whisper to be excused._

 _Walter scurried to his room to curl up and hide in the narrow space between his bed and the wall and hugged his knees, sick with dread that his mother might change her mind and take him to the doctor anyway._

 _A year later, he came down with a sore throat that wouldn’t go away. Finally it got so bad he couldn’t talk, and when he couldn’t respond to a teacher’s questions they sent him from his first grade classroom to see the school nurse. The nurse took one look down his throat and pronounced it tonsillitis, and called his mother to tell her that Walter needed to go to the hospital to have his tonsils out._

 _He’d bolted from the nurse’s office in mindless terror. It took them two hours to find him. At the hospital he’d screamed and thrashed and fought for all he was worth until they held him down and sedated him. The nurses and doctor had looked at each other, appalled, because they’d never seen a child so utterly terrified of them._

***

As Walter grew older he learned more about hospitals, doctors, and medical research. He read stories about medical errors, organ theft, drunken physicians removing the wrong organ or limb, and of government-funded medical experiments on homeless and indigent people. Things that seemed all too plausible to him. He knew only too well that the people who ran the government were capable of doing horrible things to further their goals.

By the time he had matured and had taken on the mantle of Rorschach, the things he’d learned along the way had combined with his childhood recollection of Peggy’s story and the terrifying memory of being held down and sedated by doctors when he was six, maturing into full-blown phobia.

Fortunately, his naturally strong constitution combined with his ability to hide pain had allowed him to avoid doctor’s visits while at Charlton and after he’d left the Home. After his tonsils had been removed at age six, he’d not seen a doctor nor set foot in a hospital again.

Until today, that was. Now he was standing inside a hospital, breathing air tainted with chemicals and sickness and death and nameless menace, and he couldn’t think, couldn’t draw enough breath to fill his lungs. He became vaguely aware that Daniel was talking to him, still holding onto his arm. Walter pulled back, trying to tug his arm out of Daniel’s grasp. "Can’t do this, Daniel. _Can’t_. Have to leave."

Shaking his head, he started backing away toward the double doors of the entrance. He only managed a few steps before being brought up short by Daniel’s iron grip on his arm.

***

Dan didn’t know what was causing this panic, or what it was about being inside the hospital that had his normally fearless partner so obviously scared down to his marrow and desperate to escape. But what he did know was that he couldn’t allow his friend to leave.

He held Walter’s wrist in a vise grip, felt the pulse hammering wild under his fingertips. Dan readied himself to block a punch and said, "Come on man, don’t do this. You can’t leave, you need to stay and let them help you."

Fist clenched and white-knuckled, Walter pulled hard against Dan’s hold on his wrist for a moment. Then he stopped and doubled partway over, panting, bracing himself with his free hand on his knee. Feeling terrible, Dan let go of Walter's bony wrist and placed steadying hands on his hyperventilating partner’s shoulders.

Walter looked up and locked eyes with Dan. After an obvious internal struggle, he finally whispered, "Please, Daniel." His imploring gaze was a jarring contrast to his grim, set expression.

It was beyond strange to see so much of Rorschach's emotions, his thought processes, playing themselves out across Walter's face. It felt like Dan was violating his friend's privacy simply by watching it.

Dan’s face fell, and he leaned down until his face was alongside Walter’s, almost touching it, and said quietly in his ear. "I’m so sorry, buddy. I wish you didn’t have to do this either. But there is no way this isn’t going to happen. You _are_ going to stay here and let these people save your life. I will be with you every step of the way, if that's what you need. Whatever bad thing you think is going to happen to you won't happen. I’ll make sure of it." He brought one hand up to curve around the back of Walter’s neck.

"Please, _please_ don’t make me force you to do this. I will if I have to, but I’m begging you, don’t make me. You have my word that I will bring you out of here alive and in one piece." He squeezed the back of his friend's neck, feeling the corded tension under his fingers. Walter shuddered under his hand, but Dan's touch seemed to ground him a little and he seemed to be trying to slow his breathing and get it back under control.

"Come on, man. You know I've got your back. Let's get this taken care of."

Walter finally nodded, and Dan sighed with relief. He put his arm around his partner and steered him toward the admitting desk, determined to get them there this time, before anything _else_ happened.


	7. Chapter 7

Jackie Peyton was not in a stellar mood this morning. Looking around, she straightened the collar of her nurse’s tunic and snapped, "Where the hell is Zoey?"

Thor looked up from the cart full of fresh linens that he was pushing down the hall and shrugged. "I think she's still down in the ER, talking to Lenny."

Jackie rolled her eyes, exasperated. _I should have known._

"Well, that girl needs a new watch; her break was over twenty minutes ago." She sighed. "I'm going to go down there and get her. If Coop comes looking for me, tell him I quit and ran out in tears. That should cheer him up."

"You got it." The burly nurse nodded and tossed off a quick salute as he rolled the cart away.

Down in the emergency room, Jackie’s annoyance grew as she looked around, searching for Zoey's scrubs (today they were yellow and panda-patterned). Now that Zoey and Lenny had finally made it official that they were dating, she was always getting sidetracked down here.

 _Uh oh, what’ve we got here?_

Jackie’s gaze halted on a pair of men who were standing huddled together near the ER entrance and her lips pursed as she looked them over. Both were young, probably in their mid-to-late twenties. The taller of the two wore wire-rimmed aviator glasses and a worried expression. His disorderly brown hair was mostly swept back from his forehead, a few strands of it falling into his face.

He had his arm around the waist of a much smaller man with a homely, angular face under a messy shock of bright red hair, supporting him. The shorter man was pale as milk. Partially doubled over, he was hyperventilating; breathing in rapid staccato gasps, sweating and trembling.

 _Ah, shit. That guy’s having a panic attack. Lovely. Aaaaand, he looks really sick, too. Express lane for you, my friend._

She grabbed one of the empty wheelchairs that were kept near the entrance for exactly this type of situation and moved to intercept the pair as they walked slowly toward the receiving desk.

"Here sir, your friend looks like he might want to sit down."

The taller man gave her a grateful smile. The smile reached his eyes and elevated his status from good-looking to outright handsome. "Thank you, ma’am." He helped ease his companion into the wheelchair. The redhead looked like he wanted to protest, but allowed himself to be maneuvered into the chair anyway. When he was seated, the tall man leaned down and murmured something in his ear. Whatever he said was too quiet for Jackie to make out, but the smaller man nodded, eyes closing, and his breathing slowed a bit.

Jackie raised her eyebrows and said, "So. What’s going on, guys?"

The man with the glasses rested one hand on the redhead’s shoulder and looked at her, saying, "I'm pretty sure he has appendicitis, maybe even a ruptured appendix. He's got a lot of pain in his abdomen, he’s feverish, and he’s been throwing up. I checked and he's exhibiting both Blumberg and Psoas signs."

Jackie narrowed her eyes and took a harder look at him. "Sir, do you have a medical background? Are you a doctor?"

He flushed, dropping his gaze. "No, I--no, I'm not a doctor. I do have an EMT certificate."

She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. _Blech, I hate armchair doctors. He got an EMT ticket and now he's ready to be head of surgery._ "Well, I appreciate your opinion sir, but we'll need to examine him to confirm all of that. However..."

Jackie looked down at the shivering man in the wheelchair and saw how he was curled in over his stomach. She touched his too-warm sweaty forehead (He jerked his head away from her touch as she did so. Strange), then felt his rapid pulse (another flinch at his wrist being held---okay, definitely strange).

 _Huh. Looks like the armchair doc might actually have this one right. Amazing. Okay, one point to him. Hope he's not going to turn out to be a pain in the ass, though._ "It's too early for me to say, but I think you could be right."

It hadn't escaped Jackie’s notice that so far, the man with the glasses had been doing all the talking. His sick friend had yet to say a word or even look up to meet her eyes.

Whoops, and there he went. _Looks like he's got the nausea part right, anyway_ , she thought as the redheaded man leaned forward and heaved, a splash of bile hitting the floor in front of the wheelchair. His friend held onto his shoulders to keep him from pitching forward out of the chair.

He retched a few more times, bringing up nothing more than a little saliva. Breathing hard, he tried to sit back up and with the taller man’s assistance was eased back into the chair. He coughed and grimaced in pain. He was now sweating profusely, two hectic spots of red flushing his cheeks and making his face seem even whiter. Looking embarrassed, he muttered, "Sorry, Daniel."

His friend shook his head, looking affectionately exasperated and terribly worried. "Man, don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’re not the first person who ever threw up in the emergency room."

Jackie shook her head. _Well, at least he can talk._ "You’re not even the first person to throw up in here today. Come on, let’s get you looked at." She beckoned for them to follow her.

The man with the glasses (Daniel, the other man had called him) pushed the wheelchair after her. Eyes closed, the redhead let his head fall back to rest against his friend’s chest, his rough features drawn tight with pain.

As they followed her down the hallway, the man pushing the chair said, "Thank you, ma'am. Sorry, I mean nurse...?"

"I’m Jackie. And you are?"

"Dan Dreiberg, and this is Walter. You know, I appreciate you seeing him right away like this, but don’t we need to check in?"

"I think your friend needs to be looked at immediately; I’ll have someone come in and take his information while he’s being examined in triage."

Dan nodded, looking relieved. Walter opened his eyes but remained silent, studying the backs of his hands, never looking directly at her. It was as if he was trying to ignore Jackie’s existence along with everything else that was happening.

 _What the heck is up with this guy, anyway? At least he’s not hyperventilating anymore, but he is starting to creep me out a little._

She took another look around and finally spotted Zoey. The student nurse was, as she'd expected, deep in conversation with Lenny. Zoey jumped and looked suitably guilty when Jackie caught her eye and waved her over. Saying a quick goodbye to Lenny, Zoey ran over to them. "Sorry, didn’t realize I was late, mea culpa."

Jackie waved it off. "Skip it. Just come with me and take this man’s information while I get his vitals and do a blood draw."

Outside the exam room, Jackie moved to assist Walter up out of the chair, but was a bit surprised to find his friend Dan there before her. He slung one of Walter's arms over his neck, slid his own arm smoothly around his back and effortlessly lifted the smaller man up, supporting his weight without forcing him to straighten up and taking great care not to jostle him.

It was done with a smooth expertise that told Jackie he'd done this more than a few times. _Maybe they go out drinking and the little guy gets shitfaced a lot; looks like Dan's had a bit of practice hauling his friend in and out of taxis._

Inside the exam room, Jackie stopped Dan before he got Walter settled into a chair. "Hey guys, wait a second. Walter, can I ask you to do something for me before you sit down?"

He frowned, flicking his eyes up toward her for a moment before looking away again. "What?"

"Raise yourself up on your toes, like this," she demonstrated, rising up on the balls of her feet, "then drop down quick, like this," she dropped down on her heels, feeling the impact jar her body, "and tell me if that hurts".

It was a quick way to test for rebound sensitivity without pressing into a person's abdomen. In cases of peritonitis, the sudden drop and stop would aggravate the pain momentarily as the peritoneum was jarred, then snapped back into place.

Walter regarded her suspiciously, then shot a look at Dan and sighed, nodding. Following her lead, he raised himself up, and then dropped his weight down on his heels. She could tell from the way he sucked in a deep shuddering breath and sank down, his knees buckling a fraction, eyes squeezed shut, that it hurt. A lot.

"Made it worse for a moment?" He swallowed, then nodded. "Felt better once you stopped moving?" Another nod. "Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, I know that hurt. You can sit down now."

His face clouded with fresh worry, Dan eased Walter down into a chair as carefully as if he were a carton of eggs. Then he backed off and sat on the edge of an empty exam bed, watching intently as Jackie took Walter's vital signs.

His pulse was fast and his blood pressure was a little elevated, but nothing bad. She’d actually expected his BP to be higher, considering the pain he was obviously in. Walter eyed the thermometer dubiously, but allowed her to take his temperature without an argument. When she removed it, the thermometer read 102.4.

"Well, you’ve definitely got a fever. Okay, here."

Jackie handed Walter a johnny gown along with a small wire basket to hold his clothes. "Please get undressed and put this on. You can put your clothes in the basket."

That got his attention, all right. He stiffened and looked her directly in the face for the first time, eyes narrowed. His eyes were light blue, but it was the intensity of his level gaze that really made them unusual. Suspicion plain in his voice, he said, "...Undressed?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him, wondering if this guy could possibly have the energy to be messing with her. _What, has this man never had a physical?_

"Yes. Completely undressed, and put this on."

Interestingly, instead of responding to her right away his next move was to look at his friend, Dan. They locked eyes, then Dan quirked his shoulders and dipped his head slightly. Walter frowned, but made a tiny nod back. Only after their quick little nonverbal confab was over did he acknowledge Jackie’s question. He muttered "Fine", and took the basket and johnny gown from her. She nodded, "Okay. Can you manage, or do you need help?"

He shuddered and looked repulsed, shaking his head. "No. Don’t need help."

 _Holy crap, did this guy just cringe in disgust at the idea of me helping him change out of his clothes? Wow._ Expression carefully neutral, she nodded at him and said, "Okay then, I’ll come back in a few minutes." She walked out, Dan following her.

They walked a little way down the hallway, then Jackie turned to look at Mr. Dreiberg. "So Dan, what’s going on here with Walter? I know he's pretty sick, but there's something else, right? I could see he was hyperventilating pretty badly out in the lobby."

Dan removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking very tired. He looked like he’d been up all night and desperately needed a nap. "He...doesn’t like hospitals. He really, really doesn’t like hospitals. Or doctors. But he’ll be okay, he’s just kind of nervous being in here."

He looked like a man who desperately wanted to believe what he was saying. Jackie wasn’t really convinced, but decided there wasn’t much else she could do but take him at his word for the moment.

A few minutes later she tapped on the exam room door then walked in, Dan right behind her. She stopped, bemused.

Walter had changed into the johnny gown all right, but he had it on with the ties in front. The edges of the gown didn’t meet very well (she should have given him the next larger size; the guy was broader in the chest than he’d seemed under the loose t-shirt) and he was displaying a fair amount of a surprisingly well-defined chest and stomach. He had the thin cotton blanket from the exam bench wrapped around his waist for modesty, and was glaring at them, his face red. His voice was different when he spoke this time, rougher and deeper with an edge of gravel.

" _Not_ funny."

Dan turned his head away; she caught him swallowing a smile as he did. When he turned back to her his expression had been schooled into a frown and he gestured toward Walter as he spoke to her. "Think you could…?"

"Yup. I’ll get him a larger size." As she ducked into the linen closet to grab a bigger gown, she caught a glimpse of Dan leaning in to talk to his friend and gesturing at the garment. Explaining diplomatically, she assumed, that Walter was wearing it backwards.

After Walter had changed into the larger johnny gown (she noticed when she re-entered the room that he was wearing it correctly this time), she pulled out a syringe and some specimen vials and said, "Walter, I need to get a blood sample from you before we do anything else. Do you know what your blood type is?"

She half-expected him to look at Dan again before he answered her, but he just shrugged and muttered, "No idea. Go ahead and do it."

His reaction to the blood draw was unusual. Almost everyone watched the needle until it actually touched his or her skin. Then they looked away; up, down, sideways, anywhere but directly at the needle as it punctured their skin.

Not this guy. He watched like a hawk the entire time, never flinched or moved his eyes from the needle as it pressed in and slid under his skin to pierce the vein, watching intently as the dark red fluid slipped along the little tube to fill the attached vial.

After the blood was drawn, she capped the line and left the needle in, taping it in place. _Might as well set up an IV line now and get some fluids into him, he looks a little dehydrated_ , she thought. Coop’s examination was a formality as far as she was concerned, she’d seen enough at this point to tell her that this guy was headed straight to the OR.

She started setting up a saline drip. _He's starting to look pretty rough, maybe I should add some analgesic into his IV. Yeah, I think so…4 or 6 mgs of morphine ought to take the edge off his pain and hopefully mellow him out a little bit without masking any peritoneal signs and fucking up his reactions for Coop's evaluation._ She capped off the vials and handed them to Zoey.

"Here Zoey, take these to the lab right now and tell them to call up here when they have a type and a white count. And page Dr. Cooper to get his ass up here to triage room two. I'll finish taking his information." Zoey nodded, and left for the lab.


	8. Chapter 8

Dan thoughtfully regarded his partner, who was in turn suspiciously watching the nurse as she hung a bottle of clear liquid from a hook attached to the top of a rolling metal stand. As she fiddled with the attached tubing, she looked at Walter and asked, "Do you know whether you're allergic to any medications, Walter?"

Her answer was a shrug and a muttered "Don't know." He looked balefully at the IV bottle and snapped, "No drugs."

Jackie sighed and ran a hand through her short blonde hair, leaving a few wispy spikes sticking up in its wake. Dan saw exasperation creep into her face. (He imagined that he often had the same expression when dealing with Rorschach.) She pointed at the bottle and said, "Okay, that is not a drug. That is just saline. It will replace some of the fluids you've lost by throwing up. And this," she inserted a needle into a tiny bottle and drew some of the contents up into the syringe, "is a very _mild_ morphine solution. It's a standard pre-operative pain medication and it will not knock you out. All it will do is ease your pain a little and make it a bit easier for you when the doctor examines you."

Dan was glad that she was making the effort to explain things to Walter instead of simply insisting he take the drug; it was the right approach to make. He supposed that the nurses here were probably used to dealing with difficult and even irrational patients.

Walter glared at her, but said nothing. His jaw worked a little as he silently thought things over under their combined scrutiny. Finally he sighed and nodded, audibly grinding his teeth (shooting Dan a little _'this is your fault, Daniel'_ look as he did, which Dan tried not to take too personally). The nurse hooked up the saline drip and injected the syringe's contents into the tube.

Dan wasn't sure whether to be relieved or scared that his partner had just agreed to receive painkillers. It meant, of course, that he'd be more comfortable, but it also meant that he was hurting badly enough to concede that he needed them.

He watched Walter stare fiercely at the tubing now attached to the needle in his arm, studying the clear fluid as it flowed down the IV line and into his veins. Dan saw Walter's other arm twitch and imagined that it was taking most of Rorschach's formidable willpower to keep him from simply ripping the needle out of his arm.

After a minute or so, Walter drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. As he did, Dan saw some of the apprehensive tripwire tension that had suffused his partner ever since they'd walked into the emergency room disperse a little and his posture became less teeth-clenchingly rigid. Also watching, Jackie nodded approvingly. "Okay, Doctor Cooper should be here any minute. Let me take down your information while we wait."

At his partner's behest, Dan retrieved the envelope with Walter's scribbled information from the borrowed clothing stowed (folded neatly, he noticed) in the wire basket. During the next few minutes as Dan listened to Walter's curt, monotone answers to the nurse's questions he learned that during the weekdays his partner worked at Manhattan Fabrics (which Dan found a little ironic) and was a member of the ACWA (Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America) union.

Dan frowned as he listened. He really didn’t like the way that Walter’s speech was increasingly monosyllabic or how flat his tone had become. It was a warning flag for Dan that his partner was reaching his limit. Dan was familiar with the phenomenon; they'd been partners for four years now, and he recognized this as something that happened when Rorschach was under harsh or prolonged stress.

Just as some people stuttered when they were frightened or stressed out, when Rorschach was under severe strain, his sentences became truncated and he started to drop his pronouns. The more stress he was under, the more minimalistic his speech became and the more his affect flattened out.

When it happened, it was usually during or after a really bad case; one of the ones that involved children or underage victims and sexual predators. Dan remembered that after one particularly awful case his partner had barely spoken at all for a week, just nodded or shook his head. That one had scared Dan.

After she finished taking Walter's insurance information, Jackie ' _tsk_ 'ed impatiently and headed for the door saying, "This is ridiculous. I'm going to go find Dr. Cooper and bring him back here. You guys will be okay on your own for a few minutes, right?"

Dan smiled. "We'll try to stay out of trouble."

She left and Dan found himself alone with Walter for the first time since they'd entered the hospital. Taking this opportunity to check on his partner without the dubious benefit of an audience, Dan sat on the edge of the examination table beside Walter, who was staring straight ahead and looking a little shell-shocked.

Studying his partner's face, Dan noticed that his eyes were a bit glassy and he suspected that the nurse had given him more than a small dose of painkiller. Or maybe Walter was just sensitive to the medication; Dan supposed that was just as likely. For someone who never even took aspirin, the idea that even a little morphine might knock him for a loop wasn't surprising.

Dan leaned into him a tiny bit and nudged his shoulder lightly. "Hey man, talk to me. How are you doing? Are you feeling any worse?"

It took Walter longer to respond than Dan expected. It looked like the morphine was definitely having an effect. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder and was pleased to find that the muscles under his fingers felt less tightly bunched with tension, but was more concerned about his lack of response.

Walter leaned forward, curling over his abdomen. The larger johnny gown fit better than the first one had, but the back of it still gaped open a bit. Dan's eyes traveled over the exposed pale curve of his partner's spine, following it down to the shadowed dip at his sacrum. He felt a sudden urge to touch, to run a soothing hand down Walter's backbone, counting the knobby points of his vertebrae with his thumb. But he resisted the impulse even as he wondered where it came from, knowing that it would probably just stress his partner out even more.

As he studied his friend's back, he noticed a line of dark bristles marring the skin just below his partner's ribcage and his brows lifted.

 _Damn, that's right. I had to stitch him up last week after that guy with all the skull tattoos tagged him in the back. Hope they don't make anything of it when he gets examined. I wonder if stitching someone up yourself is considered practicing medicine without a license? Oh well, at least he doesn't have any healing gunshot wounds to explain away._

A chill seemed to run through Walter and he shuddered, a little convulsion of a shiver that went from his shoulders down to his toes.

"Too cold in here, Daniel."

"The room's pretty warm, buddy. I'm afraid it's you." Dan grabbed the discarded cotton blanket from the exam table and put it around his partner's shoulders, covering his exposed back. "You have a pretty good fever going."

Walter drew the thin blanket around himself and hunched his shoulders, his stony expression turning miserable and exhausted.

"Hate this, Daniel. _Hate_ being handled and drugged like this."

"I know, buddy. I know."

Dan sighed and refrained from pointing out that what had happened to him so far was just the tip of the iceberg. The doctor's exam was going to be tough on Walter; there was no way around it. Daniel was the only person to whom Rorschach extended the privilege of being able to touch him casually, and even that hadn't happened overnight.

Back when they had first partnered up, it had been months before Rorschach was able to tolerate Dan simply placing a hand on his arm or patting his back or shoulder without stiffening up or shying away from it.

By now Rorschach accepted Dan's friendly touches without a problem. In fact, at this point he even seemed to enjoy and, in a very limited way, return them. But the fact that it had taken him so heartbreakingly long to get there spoke volumes to Dan about the nature of the demons that plagued his friend.

For the umpteenth time he wondered how Rorschach had come to so loathe (or fear, he still wasn't sure which it was) any human contact that didn't involve violence, and wished a miserable painful death on whoever it was that had taught his partner to feel that way.

He watched Walter finger the tape holding the IV needle and tubing in his arm and wondered how close his partner might be to just tearing it out and running.

As casually as possible, he reached out and scooped up the wire basket containing Walter's borrowed clothes. Then he hopped off the exam table and moved the basket to a countertop on the far side of the room. Now if he wanted to bolt, Walter would not only have to rip out his IV line and make it out of the door before Dan grabbed him, he'd also have to get past Dan to retrieve his clothes. And Dan was ready to bet that his partner would undergo open-heart surgery before he'd willingly run through the crowded hospital corridors in a flimsy garment that left his bare ass hanging in the breeze.

When he turned back he found Walter glaring at him, his expression as much of a _"Fuck you, Daniel"_ as he'd ever received from his partner.

 _Well, Dan, that was smooth._ Wilting a little under the severe stink-eye, he gave the other man a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders, saying, "Sorry. But you are staying."

Walter muttered something too low for him to catch (Dan was willing to bet it had something to do with the inherent sneakiness of the Chosen People) and pulled the cotton blanket tighter around his shoulders. Dan smiled fondly at his partner, which was met with a scowl, a _"Hmph,"_ and Walter pointedly looking the other way.

 _Oh well,_ Dan thought. _At least he's acting more normal now._

Hopefully, between the effects of the morphine and the fact that no one had yet come in to start drawing X's on Walter's back to mark where they were going to go in for his kidneys, his partner was realizing that he'd been wrong about hospitals and that there was nothing to worry about.

 _Yeah, sure he will. Right after the Comedian opens up a privately funded orphanage and serves punch and cake to the kids every Sunday dressed in a clown outfit._

Just then, the door opened and interrupted Dan's speculations about the Comedian's possible post-vigilante career path.

Jackie the nurse came in, followed by a dark-haired young man in a white lab coat who was carrying a clipboard. A stethoscope hung around his neck. The doctor's boyish face looked familiar and it took Dan a few moments to recognize the face of the model from the nearly life-size All Saints Hospital advertising figure in the emergency room lobby.


	9. Chapter 9

_That guy's actually a doctor?_ thought Dan. _Looks younger than me, he must be fresh out of med school._

Smiling, the young man advanced on Walter, who stared at him disapprovingly.

"Hi there. Walter, right? I'm Dr. Cooper." He held out his hand and then dropped it after a few moments when it became apparent that Walter had no intention of shaking it. Undaunted, he continued, "So I understand you're having some abdominal pain and nausea, right? And you've got a fever." He glanced down at his clipboard and nodded. "Oh yeah, 102.4. Impressive, man."

He looked a little oddly at Dan, obviously wondering why he was there. Dan stepped forward and held out his hand, flashing his most genial smile.

"Hi. Dan Dreiberg. I'm a friend of Walter's. Pleased to meet you, doctor."

Dr. Cooper reached out and shook Dan's hand, still looking puzzled but automatically smiling back anyway. "Hi there, Dan." Then he turned back to Walter and said, "All right my friend, let's have a look at you." He reached out and removed the cotton blanket draped over his patient's shoulders.

Walter stared at him coldly, head cocked to one side. His hands curled slowly, almost lazily, into fists. Dan recognized the posture Rorschach adopted when sizing up a criminal and deciding whether to merely knock the malfeasant unconscious or break a few bones first. He was also pretty sure that Walter had already had his fill today of people wanting to take a look at him.

 _Please buddy, stay cool and let this guy check you over and just answer his questions without giving him too much trouble. The quicker this goes, the faster they can fix what's wrong with you and I can get you out of here._

***

Jackie watched Dr. Cooper begin his examination. He listened to Walter's heart and lungs, checked his eyes and ears, and looked in his mouth. Then he carefully felt along Walter's throat and under his jawline to see whether his glands were swollen.

Pretty standard checkup stuff, but she noticed that Coop's patient kept nervously (or maybe angrily, she couldn't tell) clenching and unclenching his hands during the whole procedure, especially when Coop ran his fingers underneath his jaw and over his throat. His rigid bearing shouted that he wanted to be somewhere, _anywhere_ other than here. As unlikely as it was in this day and age, Jackie was starting to wonder if maybe this guy had actually never had a physical examination before. He was sure acting like this was all new to him.

Dr. Cooper curiously examined a long thin scar that ran down the side of Walter's throat to just below his clavicle, his face inches away from his patient's. Walter frowned at him and drew back as far as he could without falling over. Jackie thought that if she were Coop, she'd be worried right now about a head butt or a bitten nose. From the look on Dan's face, she figured that Walter's friend was probably thinking the same thing.

Oblivious to Walter's expression, Dr. Cooper nodded at him and put a hand on his shoulder, pushing gently. "All right, now, just lie down flat on your back for me, please?"

She saw Walter give Dr. Cooper a narrow-eyed look of distaste that said that, along with everything else Coop had done so far, he didn't really care for the question or the way it was phrased. Walter glanced at Jackie, then at his friend Dan as if to mentally check off their exact locations in the room. Then he obediently lay down flat on the table, arms stiff at his sides.

Dr. Cooper listened with his stethoscope at several different points on Walter's abdominal area and made some notes. Then he palpated Walter's upper abdomen through the hospital gown, working his way down to the lower right quadrant. Jackie watched him tap here and there, testing for percussive response and making note of it when Walter winced. She sighed, knowing that Coop was going to test for rebound sensitivity now. It was too bad that he couldn't just take her word for it; she'd told him about the man's response to the heel drop. But as the examining doctor, he needed to confirm its presence for himself.

When Coop pressed deep into his lower right abdomen Jackie saw Walter tense up, obviously anticipating pain. She noticed that his friend Dan was watching them and frowning.

"All right, Walter. Do you feel any pain when I do this?" After a moment of silence, Walter shook his head, muttering "No". The doctor pressed firmly again, leaning into it a little. "Or when I do this?" Walter shook his head, grunting a negative.

Dr. Cooper suddenly took his hand away. Walter's instant response to the release of pressure on his abdomen sounded like it was torn unwillingly out of his throat at gunpoint as he sat up, teeth bared.

" _Ahhn...yes!_ "

Jackie was watching Dan's face when he heard his friend's cry of pain. His face tightened, lips thinning, and his hand curled briefly into a tight fist. In that moment she saw something hard and dangerous flash in his eyes and it occurred to her that her initial impression might have been wrong. Maybe Walter was not the one whose behavior she needed to worry about. Then the look was gone and the eyes behind the glasses were once more soft and worried.

There was a tap at the door, then Zoey came in and handed Jackie some papers. Looking down, Jackie was impressed to see Walter's initial blood results. "That was fast. You hovered over them, didn't you, while they ran his tests?"

"Like a _hawk_ " Zoey said, looking highly pleased with herself. "They hustled, let me tell you."

Jackie rolled her eyes and smiled in spite of herself, shaking her head. She went through the initial blood work results, marking the most important information. His blood type was A+; not a problem, they had a good supply. Not anemic, good. Visual estimated white count was between 18,000 and 20,000. Not good.

 _Oh yes, my little carrot-top. As soon as Coop signs off on the authorization we need to get you x-rayed, prepped, and into surgery because you are very, very ill._

She handed the papers to Cooper. As he perused the results, she said, "Doctor, should I call the OR now and tell them to get ready?" He looked up, annoyed.

"Mind if I finish my exam first, _nurse_?"

Jackie put her hands up in an _'I surrender'_ gesture. "I'm just saying that time may be a factor here, _doctor_."

She mentally kicked herself because she'd just guaranteed that Coop was going to take his time and make sure he thoroughly completed every single step of the standard diagnostic exam before giving this guy a green light for surgery. _Sorry, Walter_ , she thought. _Didn't mean to hold you up by starting a pissing match with Coop._

Dr. Cooper looked at her, then at Zoey and Dan and shook his head. "All right, there are too many people in here. Let's give this man a little privacy so I can finish examining him, shall we? Zoey, don’t you have rounds to do? Jackie, why don't you show Dan here where he can wait, take him to get a cup of coffee or something?"

Aside from the aggravation of Coop high-handedly dismissing her like that, Jackie was a bit nervous about the little guy's behavior without his friend right there to ride herd on him. But she had to admit that Coop had a point, there were a lot of people in the room. And whatever the relationship was between these two guys, she was willing to bet that Walter might find it a bit embarrassing to have his friend watching while Coop checked him for hernias and internal masses.

"Whatever you say, doctor. Dan?" She motioned for Dan and Zoey to precede her from the room. Dan lingered for a moment, looking at Dr Cooper, then at his friend, and nodded. Speaking directly to Walter, he said, "I'll be right back."

***

Out in the hall Dan stopped and leaned against the wall just outside the door. Jackie stopped also and said, "Come on. Why don't we go get you a cup of coffee? It will only take a few minutes, the cafeteria's not far."

He shook his head and said loudly, "I'm fine right here. I'll wait."

Dan intended to stay parked right where he was until the doctor was done with his exam. He hated feeling that he had to hover close by like this, as if Walter were some poorly trained attack dog who might suddenly turn and savage someone if his handler wasn't right there to control him.

But he also had to acknowledge that his partner probably still saw these people as vultures waiting for the first chance to make a dive for his kidneys or other internal organs. And as such, it really behooved Dan to be near enough to defuse the situation if the doctor said something that Walter might construe as sinister, such as "Have you ever had kidney problems?" or "Do you drink or smoke?" or "What did you have for breakfast yesterday?"

But underlying all of this was the simple fact that his partner, his fearless Rorschach, was afraid in this place. And that alone was reason enough to glue Dan to his side until this thing was over and they were both out of here.

***

The drug in his system was making things seem just a little unreal, a little remote. It was also dulling his pain to a more tolerable level. The pain was still there, a spreading acidic burn through his guts, but the morphine had wrapped it in a thin layer of cotton wool and tamed it into a more manageable thing for the time being, as long as he didn't move around too much.

The doctor lifted the gown up and to the side, completely exposing him. Walter clenched his teeth and did his best to suppress all reaction, to simply not be there. He could hear Daniel's voice out in the hall and latched on to the fact that while not in the room, his partner was still close by.

Brow furrowed, the doctor stared down at Walter's body and scribbled a few notes on his clipboard. He asked Walter several disgustingly intrusive questions about his recent urination and bowel functions, which Walter was grateful Daniel and the two women weren't there to overhear. Then he started feeling Walter's lower abdomen again, his hands moving slowly down toward his groin.

Walter was trying as hard as he could to tolerate having the doctor's hands on him. This was the first time since he'd reached adulthood that anyone, except for Daniel, had touched his body in a non-combat situation. Between that and being so vulnerably exposed in front of this stranger, it was almost impossible to bear. And being touched like this without even the flimsy barrier provided by the thin cotton gown made it so much worse.

At least the man had put on gloves. Walter appreciated the protective layer of latex that prevented the other man from touching his naked skin with his bare hands.

"Okay, Walter. I need to check you for hernias and see if I find any internal masses or signs of bleeding. I'm also checking for any other tender areas, so be sure to tell me if anything I do hurts, okay buddy?"

Walter tamped down a flash of irritation at being called 'buddy' (really, it wasn't as if Daniel had taken a patent on the name; it just felt jarring and wrong to hear anyone else call him that) and listened attentively but was unsure exactly what all of that meant.

The only part of it that made sense to him was being checked for hernias. He vaguely recalled something about that from his boxing days at Charlton and remembered the other boys talking and joking about how the school doctor was going to check all the athletic students for hernias as part of their physicals (forewarned, he'd skipped out of training that day).

Walter steeled himself, but still wasn't really prepared for it when the gloved hands started feeling his groin area. No one had ever touched him there before; not even Daniel (although he'd have uneasily allowed it if necessary, if he'd been injured there in battle).

He blanched, remembering shameful occasions when he'd thought about Daniel's hands running over him with intentions other than first aid, and vehemently shoved the thoughts away. But they didn't fade completely, and as the hands moved around his genitals, pressing and palpating, he felt nausea rise and coil heavy in his throat. His chest hitched and he swallowed hard to keep from retching.

Walter focused on controlling his breath and tried to think back to his conversation with Daniel from last night, trying desperately to remember which strategies they'd discussed for breaching a heavily guarded warehouse where drugs were being stored.

"Okay Walter, I need you to roll over on your side for me." The doctor helped roll Walter up onto his side, leaving the arm without the IV line in it tucked underneath him. "Like I said before, if anything I do hurts, you speak up, all right?"

Walter tensed as a hand rested on his hip, holding him steady. He readied himself for a new source of pain, perhaps having his kidneys poked and prodded. Enough seconds ticked by that he started wondering what was going on. Then a revoltingly slick, latex-covered finger inserted itself somewhere that it had absolutely no business being under any circumstances.

And this was one thing that he actually _hadn't_ been expecting. Being kidnapped and used as a guinea pig for unspeakable medical experiments, yes. Waking up from anesthesia to find limbs or organs missing, yes. Being molested by a degenerate physician while other people, including Daniel, were within earshot no more than twenty feet away from him hadn't even been remotely on his list of vile things likely to happen to him in a hospital. But here it was.

Walter's drug-dulled brain stuttered to a halt, struggling to process the fact that this pervert had just put his finger inside of him and, apparently unsatisfied with that violation, was actually _moving it around_. The motions produced discomfort and, as the digit explored further, an odd sensation that despite the pain he was in sparked a horrifying reaction from his body. When that happened, Walter's brain unlocked. He snarled and twisted his upper body around so that he could look this deviant in the eye, his fist cocked back.

Before the man could react, Walter's first punch landed on a nerve cluster in the upper portion of his arm, partially paralyzing it and causing the offending hand to withdraw immediately. As the pervert's eyes widened in pain and shock, Walter drew his fist back again and, fast as a striking snake, delivered a follow-up punch square in the middle of his disbelieving face. Behind the blow was the strength of every affront to his dignity that he'd had to endure so far today.

***

Out in the hall, Dan heard two noises that he was intimately familiar with, both of which spun him around and sent him lunging through the door of the examination room.

The first sound was a ragged snarl of rage. The second one, which occurred immediately afterward, was the muffled thud of a fist striking flesh and bone through cloth.

Dan flew into the room just in time for his horrified eyes to see one of Walter's whipcord-muscled arms flash out as his partner punched Dr. Cooper right in the face. Walter's bony fist connected with the man's nose and the doctor went flying, literally lifted off of his feet. He landed hard on a cart, overturning it with a crash and tumbled to the floor in a heap amidst a clattering shower of instruments.


	10. Chapter 10

Dan stopped and stared in disbelief; first at the toppled cart and motionless man on the floor, then at his partner.

Walter hastily yanked the hospital gown down to cover himself, his face scarlet with embarrassment. As Dan watched, his livid partner started to slide off of the exam table, hands fisted. His eyes were glittering slits of anger fixed on Dr. Cooper's sprawled body. Appalled, Dan lunged forward to grab his friend’s wrist and keep him from leaving the table, bellowing, " _Ror--gaah! WALTER! Knock it off!_ ".

Behind Dan, Jackie stared at Walter, her mouth open. Then she moved quickly to kneel and examine the unconscious Cooper.

Flabbergasted, Dan gaped at his partner who looked back at him, shaking with fury. Gesturing angrily at the downed doctor, Dan found himself fighting down a mighty urge to yell in his partner's face for the second time that day. He settled for an angry intense hiss, instead. "What the hell, man?!"

Still tugging down on the johnny gown, Walter gave Dan a sullen glare like a house cat that had just been smacked with a newspaper for jumping up on the countertop. Glaring at Dr. Cooper, Walter curled his thin upper lip into a snarl, exposing crooked teeth.

“Deviant. Put his hand on my...put his finger inside..." He grimaced, looking over Dan's shoulder at the woman kneeling beside the doctor, obviously struggling to get the next part out. "Somewhere _completely_ inappropriate."

Dan paused, his incipient scolding of his partner derailed by this piece of information. He turned to the nurse, his eyebrows raised. Ignoring him for the moment, Jackie finished her examination of the unconscious Cooper.

"Wow. He's really out." She stood up and frowned at Walter. Dan noticed that she was staying well outside of both their potential reaches and morosely reflected that that probably wasn't good. "What did you say happened?"

"Pervert. Put his finger inside somewhere it had _no_ business being. Told him the problem is here" he indicated his stomach, "not…behind."

The nurse looked completely mystified for a moment, and then realization dawned on her face. "You mean he put his finger inside your rectum and felt around?"

Dan felt a sympathetic pang for his partner's embarrassment as Walter turned his head away looking completely mortified, then nodded and muttered "Yes". He looked more than ever like he wanted to simply drop through the floor and vanish. If offered the choice right at this moment, Dan thought that Rorschach would probably have preferred dying of peritonitis on his couch. He also groaned inwardly as he realized what had happened.

Over the last few years Dan had developed several personal theories concerning his reticent and intensely private partner's background. The theory that Rorschach had been raised in some fringe religious sect that eschewed any acknowledgement of the physical body suddenly jumped into the front-runner position.

Rorschach probably hadn't the faintest idea that a rectal exam was a legitimate medical procedure and not just something the Twilight Lady's clients would pay big money for. And at this point Dan thought it was entirely possible that Walter might not even be aware of what a prostate was, let alone that he had one. He sighed and looked a little sadly at his partner, who met his look square on with a furious one of his own.

" _Not_ here to be molested by some degenerate," Walter growled.

Dan shook his head wearily and pinched the bridge of his nose. A migraine was imminent. "Yeah, buddy. You told him. Let's just hope we don't have to wait for him to wake up now before you can be operated on."

Walter shrugged. His voice was now thoroughly Rorschach's, dark and gritty with anger. "Doubt he's the only doctor available. Don't want him touching me anyway; there must be someone more competent."

He glared truculently at the unconscious man and then at Dan, obviously expecting Daniel to be on his side for this one.

Dan sighed, thinking _Lovely. We've been here less than an hour and already someone's knocked out cold. Well, at least he’s definitely talking more normally now. And he doesn’t seem to be freaking out anywhere near as badly as he was. I guess a little violence was just what he needed._

He looked into Walter's furious eyes, trying to think of the most diplomatic way to put his next question. "Didn't he say why…uh, tell you why he was…that he was going to do what he did?"

Walter shuddered and snarled, "No! Would have told him not to touch me if he had."

He was starting to look a bit wobbly to Dan, who noticed that the flushed high color was draining out of his face, leaving it pale again. Dan guessed that Walter's sudden bout of movement had probably exacerbated his pain and overcome the cushioning effects of the morphine dose.

The student nurse, Zoey, barged abruptly into the room, evidently drawn back by the noise. She skidded to a halt and gasped when she saw the unconscious doctor. "What happened!?" she squeaked.

Jackie, who had knelt down again to arrange Cooper's limbs into a more comfortable position, didn't bother to look up from the prone man as she answered. "Mr. Kovacs took offense at Dr. Cooper's examination technique and punched him in the face." She patted Cooper's shoulder and stood up. "I don't think he's going to be able to continue with the exam. Zoey, why don't you go get Dr. O'Hara? And we'd better get a stretcher in here for Coop."

When the girl didn't immediately respond, Jackie looked up her. Zoey was alternating between gaping in ill-concealed delight at Cooper's unconscious body and beaming at the glowering man on the exam bench. Watching her, Dan guessed that Cooper probably wasn't the young lady's favorite doctor.

Walter glared at her in confused suspicion, brow furrowed, then " _hrmphed_ " and turned his head to stare over Dan's left shoulder at a vague point somewhere out in space.

Jackie picked up the doctor's fallen clipboard from the floor and stood up, looking at it, snapping at the student nurse as she did. "Zoey, would you go get O’Hara, please? She's probably in her office." She looked at Walter for a moment, her expression thoughtful. "And tell Thor and Sam to come down here too, will you?"

 _Uh oh_. Dan didn't like the sound of that at all.

The nurse put one hand up to her face and tapped her mouth with her index finger, watching Walter thoughtfully, then returned her attention to the doctor's clipboard.

***

Jackie read through Cooper's notes, glancing up from them every few seconds to make sure that neither of the two men were making any suspicious moves.

_"Patient admitted with abdominal pain, nausea, and fever. Temperature is 102.4, indicating significant infection. Blood pressure slightly elevated upon admission but dropping as of last reading. Visual exam of the patient's blood reveals a decidedly elevated leukocyte count. Recommend further blood tests to check for sepsis."_

_"Upon examination patient exhibits severe rebound pain in lower right quadrant, suggesting significant peritoneal irritation. Note severe circular contusion on lower right abdomen, indicating recent blunt force trauma to the area. Abdomen is almost completely silent and abdominal guarding is present."_

_"Tenderness located in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen suggests acute appendicitis, and combined with other signs suggests probable peritonitis. No hernias or masses found during manual abdominal and inguinal inspection. Rectal examination "_

The doctor's notes ended there. Jackie frowned, looking at Cooper, then at his patient, and shrugged. _Fuck it. I've done it before, for less reason._

Writing underneath Cooper's last note, she added, " _Recommend x-rays of the area and immediate surgery to locate and treat the source of the infection and remove ruptured appendix if necessary._ ”

She scribbled Cooper's initials underneath the recommendation, then handed the clipboard to Zoey who was continuing to divide her rapt attention between Cooper and the patient. Exasperated, Jackie snapped her fingers in front of the mesmerized Zoey’s face. "Zoey? Zoey! Wake up! Go get O’Hara, will you? Give this to her, and get Thor and Sam down here too, all right?"

Zoey finally snapped out of it, looking a little embarrassed. She nodded, took the clipboard and left in a rush.

Jackie looked directly at Walter, trying to keep a lid on her own anger and gauge how likely this guy was to attack anyone else. _You will not tell a patient he's a paranoid idiot, you will not tell a patient he's a paranoid idiot, you will not\--_.

She took a deep breath and spoke to him in her best level, no-bullshit voice. “So. Walter.“

Walter turned his head to face her, pain-bright eyes narrow and dangerous in his perspiring face. His friend Dan was still standing at his side, resting a hand on Walter's elbow and looking apprehensive.

“I can see that you’re a very modest man. You're also a very sick man.” She folded her arms and looked him directly in the eye, using the tone of voice that she used when laying down the law to her eldest daughter, Grace, and praying that it would strike the right chord with this little nut.

“Here’s the thing. In order to treat you, doctors will Need. To. Touch. You. Sometimes in places that you may find embarrassing.”

She enunciated the next part very carefully. “And that’s okay, because they’re _doctors._ ” After waiting a moment for that to hopefully sink in, she continued.

"A standard diagnostic exam for suspected peritonitis not only includes an inguinal check for hernias, but a rectal examination to detect possible masses, bleeding, or prostate issues. It's unfortunate that he didn't explain to you what he was doing in more specific terms, but you just knocked that man unconscious for doing his job."

Jackie paused, wondering if any of this was actually registering with him. Walter's expression gave back nothing; he just kept watching her with those wary pale eyes. His friend Dan was glancing worriedly back and forth between them, probably wondering the same thing.

"If we do not operate on you soon, I think there's a very good chance that you are going to die in a slow, nasty, and undignified way. So I need to know, Walter. Is this it? Or do I have to worry about you doing anything else that's crazy? Because I cannot _stress enough_ how much we need to get you prepped to go into surgery right now."

It was impossible to tell if any of this was getting through. He simply stared at her, eyes blank, face completely expressionless under his unruly thatch of red-orange hair, looking like a statue of a surly oversized leprechaun. She shook her head and continued.

"And believe me, while I can understand the temptation, you cannot just punch Dr. Cooper out for being an idiot and assuming you knew what he was doing instead of explaining it thoroughly in advance and making sure that you understood exactly what he was going to do."

"If you’re planning on assaulting anyone else here just because they do something that pisses you off, we have a big problem.”

***

As the nurse talked, Dan studied Walter's face carefully, wishing that he had more experience with reading his facial expressions.

He wasn't worried about Walter going after the nurse; as much as his friend obviously disliked and distrusted women, he'd never known him to hit one (with the exception of Leslie, but the Twilight Lady had been trying to knife Rorschach at the time, so he definitely got a pass on that one). Dan was more worried that Walter would decide that he'd had enough at this point and was going to leave no matter what, appendicitis be damned.

Now that he had a chance to really look at his partner and take in his body language, Dan thought he seemed as much unnerved as he did angry. He wondered if something else had happened that Walter hadn't told them about.

He cast around for something he could say that might ease Walter's distress and humiliation, but nothing jumped to mind. " _You know, buddy, someday you'll look back at this and laugh about it,_ " seemed both unlikely and a really poor choice unless Dan was looking to be the day's second recipient of the Walter Kovacs "Things That Will Get Me Punched Across the Room" award.

Dan moved to upright the overturned instrument table and hunkered down next to Dr. Cooper. He carefully lifted the unconscious man and laid him on an empty gurney that stood against the far wall. As he did, the man stirred and groaned, then subsided again. Dan waved Jackie over. "Nurse? I think he's starting to come around a little."

She came over and thumbed up one of Cooper's eyelids, nodding as she watched his eye move.

Dan looked at Walter who continued to silently watch the nurse, his eyes flat and wary. He sighed and said, "Jackie? Can I have a minute to talk to Walter alone, please?"

For a moment she looked like she was going to protest, then she nodded. "Sure. I've got to flag someone down to take Cooper up to x-ray anyway and find out whether his nose is broken. I'll be outside." She grabbed one end of the gurney and with Dan's help, pushed it and its now feebly moving cargo out into the hall.

As the door closed behind her, Dan walked back to the exam table and sat down on it next to Walter. He put an arm around his partner's stiff shoulders and spoke to him quietly, "Buddy, she's right. You need to let them do their thing and help you, all right? I know you just want to get out of here, but the only way that's going to happen is for them to go in first and get rid of whatever's poisoning you inside."

Walter suddenly looked very tired and slumped against him, the side of his face resting on Dan's shoulder. When he spoke, the hoarse, snarling edge to his voice was gone and he sounded exhausted, as if the burst of anger and action had sandblasted all of the rough edges off and there was just weariness left now. "Can't let them put me to sleep, Daniel. If they do, I won't wake up whole. Or I won't wake up at all."

The hopeless fear in his voice slipped a needle right into Dan's heart and he squeezed his partner's shoulder, wishing he dared to actually take him in his arms and really hold him. "I told you before. I will say it again. I give you my word. I _promise_ that I will stay here and guard you and make sure that you're safe. The only thing they will take out of you is your appendix or whatever else it is inside you that's infected."

Walter closed his eyes and rested quietly against his shoulder. Dan silently ticked off the seconds as his partner thought it over. Finally, Walter nodded wearily. "Tell them to go ahead. Just want this to be over."

Overwhelmed with relief, Dan lifted his hand to briefly cradle the side of Walter's face and pressed a quick, grateful kiss to the top of his partner's head. "Thank you, buddy."


	11. Chapter 11

Walter became very still. In a soft, questioning voice he said, "Daniel?"

Dan realized what he was doing. _Oops. Too far._ He took his arm away and said, "Sorry, man. I know, the last thing you want right now is someone else pawing at you."

Walter looked thoughtful and then sighed. In a faint, tired voice he said, "It's all right, Daniel." Closing his eyes, he murmured almost too low for Dan to catch, "Don't really mind if it's you."

Despite his worry, Dan couldn't help grinning at that. He was tempted to drop another, more lingering, kiss on top of Walter's head just to see what he'd do--but the man was under enough stress right now.

"Daniel."

"Hmm?" Jolted out of his momentary fog, Dan shook off the distraction and focused on Walter who wore an odd, strained expression.

"Regret to say it, but vehement action was probably inadvisable. Had an unfortunate side effect." He sucked in a sharp breath and winced. "Pain is much worse now."

A cold feeling bloomed inside Dan's chest and he looked at his partner, finally truly scared. This was a man who last year had sat rock steady and barely even grunted when Dan re-seated his dislocated shoulder and splinted his broken wrist (after Rorschach had used the grappling gun one-handed to arrest his and Nite Owl's free-fall from the top floor of a burning ten-story building). If Walter was actually complaining about being in pain, then he had to be in real agony.

***

As Daniel looked at him with frightened eyes a new, shockingly harsh flood of pain suffused Walter's abdomen, burning and threatening to steal his breath as his diaphragm tightened in response. It felt like someone had slit his belly open and poured acid into his guts. Fighting to remain quiet, Walter carefully lowered himself to lie down on the exam bench and curled on his side. Teeth chattering, he sipped air in shallow gasps, shaking with the effort to control himself.

He looked up at his partner and the empathy in Daniel's face almost dissolved his composure. A short clipped moan shivered out of his throat, a tiny broken-glass sound, and Daniel now looked like he was on the verge of panicking.

"Oh. Oh, damn. All right, lie still buddy. I'll get the nurse back in here."

Alarmed, Walter motioned for Daniel to stop as the other man started for the door. "Daniel, wait!"

Daniel stopped and looked back at him, the imperative need to summon help vibrating in every impatient line of his body. "What, man? I need to get you help, you're getting worse."

"Just...wait a minute."

It was bad enough being so overtly weak and fearful in front of Daniel; although he certainly trusted his partner not to mock or take advantage, it still made Walter cringe. He _would not_ display his weakness in front of these deviants and likely organ thieves. Like any other opportunistic predators, once they smelled or sighted weakness it might prove to be an irresistible temptation to attack.

And as efficiently as Daniel could guard him if he were rendered unconscious in one of these outer rooms, once Walter was whisked away into the mysterious interior of the hospital he'd be beyond his partner's ability to protect or defend. It would then be ridiculously easy for them to tell Daniel that there had been unforeseen complications and that they were very sorry but his friend hadn't survived his operation. He didn't know what he could do to prevent this from happening, but he could at the very least not appear to be easy prey before these people.

A fresh surge of anxiety made him shudder. His stomach rolled over and his mouth flooded with saliva. Swallowing hard, he concentrated on breathing evenly and controlling his nausea. The time when they were going to drug him into insensibility was almost here and Walter didn't know what to do. Even though he'd just told Daniel to let them proceed, every instinct he had was screaming at him, telling him not to allow it; to _get out of this place_.

As Daniel watched, Walter made a supreme effort to master himself. He closed his eyes as a spasm of pain twisted his features. Then, bit by bit, his expression smoothed out until his face was stony and unemotional again. Walter took a slow deep breath and gritted his teeth, then opened his eyes and started to lever himself upright.

Daniel quickly put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from rising, his voice rumbling low enough to rival Rorschach's angriest growl. "I swear to God that I will knock you out if you try to sit up. Just lie down and stop moving around."

***

Walter looked at Dan, then at the closed door to the hallway, his eyes wide and a little wild. "Daniel, please. Help me get out of here, now."

 _What? God damn it, I thought we just got past this! Fuck._

Dan tightened his grip on Walter's shoulder, squeezing it gently and counted to ten before answering. "Walter..." He leaned in and whispered " _Rorschach_ ", pausing for a moment as his partner's eyes focused on him, drawn by the name. "Buddy, if I do that, you'll die."

Walter nodded solemnly, his eyes riveted on Dan's face. When he spoke his voice was intense and eerily calm. "At least I'll die whole. Daniel, you can't guard me when I'm in their operating rooms being cut open. They'll take me apart and tell you I died and I'll just disappear. You can't prevent it; it's what happens in places like this to people like me."

Then it hit Dan. He realized that up until now he still hadn't completely understood what was wrong with his partner. He'd thought this was just an extreme example of one of his partner's illogical paranoias, like the fluoridated water thing, compounded by Rorschach's fear and hatred of being at the mercy of people he didn't know, of being exposed to and touched by strangers. But Dan finally got it now; Rorschach was not just scared shitless of being in a hospital, he had an actual phobia about them.

And one thing Dan knew about people with phobias was that they couldn't be reasoned with, couldn't be convinced that things were otherwise. Dan realized that Walter was now far, far past the point of rationality. And the longer he argued with Walter about this, the less rational he was going to be about it.

Dan gave Walter's shoulder a last squeeze, then straightened up. He tried to inject as much surety into his voice as possible. "I'm going to get the nurse now. I know you don't believe it, but I promise it will be all right. I will be right back."

He avoided Walter's gaze as he left to get the nurse.

***

Out in the hall, Jackie was relieved to see Dr. O'Hara approaching, reading from a clipboard as she walked. Thor was right behind her, which was also good, just in case their new pal Walter decided to go haywire on someone again. O'Hara looked up from the clipboard and smiled.

"So, Jacks, I understand that we have someone with a hot appendix, maybe a hot belly?"

Jackie nodded "Very hot, I think. This guy needs to go to surgery right now."

O'Hara shook her head. A few bits of dark hair fell into her face and she pushed them back into place impatiently. Exasperation sharpened her clipped British accent as she complained, "I suppose Fitch is off having an early lunch with his publicist? Why Akalitus ever decided to move forward with that idiotic Face of All Saints campaign, I cannot fathom. I can just barely stomach Cooper being completely insufferable about it, but this ducking out of rounds to schedule photo shoots is rather obnoxious of him."

Jackie looked at her, surprised. "Zoey didn't tell you?"

O'Hara paused and looked up from the clipboard again. "Nooo, evidently she didn't. Tell me what?"

"Coop had a little accident; he's down in the ER getting patched up."

Before she could continue and fill O'Hara in on the details of Cooper's 'accident', the exam room door opened and Mr. Dreiberg emerged abruptly. Barely controlled panic in his voice, he met her eye and said, "Please come look at him, he's getting worse. Ah...hi." He stopped and looked at O'Hara, who held out her hand.

"Hello, I'm Doctor O'Hara. I'm going to be performing the surgery on--" She glanced at the clipboard holding Cooper's evaluation, "Walter, right?"

***

He took her hand to shake it and nodded. "Yeah, Walter. I'm Dan." Then he looked at Jackie and said, "He's in a lot more pain now, I think something might have happened. Please come see him."

Dan expected the doctor to ask him why he was there, but instead she just turned and walked into the exam room. Dan and the two nurses followed. Gratified to see that Walter had stayed put on the exam bench, Dan smiled at his partner who ignored him to stare at the new people. Walter lay quietly on his side and watched the new doctor approach him. He was breathing in a slow and carefully controlled rhythm, as if he needed to count and catalog every breath.

The doctor looked Walter over appraisingly as she approached him. "Hello, Walter. I'm Eleanor O'Hara, I'm the doctor who's going to perform your operation. Dan here says that you're feeling worse?"

Walter frowned at her and shot Dan a black look, but then nodded reluctantly. "Maybe."

Dan fought down the momentary unworthy impulse to jump on Walter, grab him around the neck and administer a sleeper hold, then once he was out tell the nurse to just dope him up to the gills. He sighed inwardly, filed the thought away under wishful thinking and settled for rolling his eyes and meeting his friend's glare with a stern expression, saying, "No bull, man, let the doctor know how you're feeling. I know you're in more pain, you need to tell her about it."

Walter let his breath out in an annoyed huff, feverish eyes bright in his haggard face. _He looks like shit_ , Dan realized with a thrill of dismay. _He's gotten so much worse in the last hour or so. Or he's just so tired now that he can't keep hiding it._ Suddenly Walter swallowed hard and looked alarmed. His chest hitched and his hand came up to cover his mouth as he retched.

Dan moved toward Walter as O'Hara said "Oops", and Jackie muttered "Got it". The nurse swiftly grabbed a small basin from the countertop and moved it into position below Walter's head as he rolled forward to cough out a small stream of bile and foam. There wasn't much (Dan was surprised he had anything left to bring up at this point), and Walter was soon left dry heaving over the little steel bowl held under his face, gasping out short brittle " _huhnn_ " sounds of pain between spasms.

The acrid smell of bile stung Dan's nose as he stood by his friend's head, one hand on the back of his neck, the other resting on his shoulder trying to steady him. Jackie had a hand on Walter's other shoulder as she held the basin for him and spoke, her voice a low and soothing monotone.

"All right honey, it's okay. Try to stay as still as you can. Easy now, just take it easy, you'll be all right."

Trying to keep his own voice from sounding too panicky, Dan looked from her to the doctor and asked, "What's happening to him?"

Dr. O'Hara shook her head. "Something might have torn or ruptured. We have to get him to x-ray and into surgery, now."

Jackie nodded in agreement. "He probably didn't do himself any good when he exerted himself before." She straightened up. "All right guys, we are out of time. We need to take you to be prepped right now, Walter. But before we go I'm going to give you another shot of morphine to help with your pain." She retrieved the tiny bottle of morphine and a fresh syringe from the counter and turned toward Walter.

Dan had the unpleasant sense of helplessly watching an impending disaster unfold as he observed his partner watching the male nurse as he followed Jackie and approached Walter. Walter's eyes narrowed to glittering slits and Dan saw him go still and tense, preparing for confrontation.

For a moment Dan had no idea what to do. Then a thought struck him and he cringed; but as he turned it over in his head he had to admit to himself that it might just work.

 _Oh man. I hope you appreciate this buddy, because I'm about to look like a huge asshole for your sake._


	12. Chapter 12

His voice sharp and forceful, Dan snapped out, "Excuse me."

It was partly the voice Nite Owl used to command thugs to surrender and partly the voice of Sam Dreiberg, Chief Executive Officer and principal shareholder. Everyone, including Walter, stopped and stared at him.

Dan took a deep breath and did his best imitation of his father addressing a roomful of hostile board members.

"I need you people to understand something. I expect that you will do your absolute best for Walter and I expect to see him come out of this operation whole and sound. If he does not, I will hold you personally responsible."

The doctor and the nurses stood unmoving and listened to him, obviously bewildered. Brow furrowed in puzzlement, Walter was watching him intently and taking in every word, bloodshot eyes burning with concentration in his white face. Dan drew himself up and looked down his nose, raking a steely gaze over them before continuing.

"I am very well off. My family is _extremely_ well off. I can afford to litigate against this hospital and win. If anything happens to him, I will bring in a team of malpractice lawyers and we will sue this hospital into the next century on his behalf. This place won’t be able to afford a bottle of aspirin when I'm done with it, and that's a promise."

There was an uncomfortable silence during which the emotional temperature of the room plummeted. Dr. O'Hara looked at him like he was something noisome she'd just found stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Jackie frowned at him, looking confused and unpleasantly surprised, and the male nurse seemed both pissed off and slightly amused. Walter just stared at Dan as if he'd never seen him before, his mouth hanging open. Finally O'Hara raised an eyebrow and said,

“Duly noted. Now that that’s off your chest, do you mind terribly if we move forward with saving your friend’s life?"

Dan wilted a little when he saw the distaste in the doctor's face and had to fight down the automatic urge to apologize to her for acting like a rich-boy horse's ass. He'd always hated it when his father behaved like this and it was Dan's nature to be friendly and conciliatory, especially toward women old enough to be his mother. But when he looked at Walter and saw the animal desperation in his friend's eyes subside into thoughtfulness it made the embarrassment well worth it. So instead of apologizing, Dan made himself simply nod sternly at the doctor, then breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Looking at Walter's face, Dan was positive that the notion that the hospital could be sued if they harmed him (and that Daniel would do so on his behalf) had never occurred to his partner. And he was also sure that the idea that money could actually work to his benefit for a change had never occurred to Walter, either.

As much as Rorschach always vehemently despised it (as did Dan) when rich people threw their wealth around to buy preferential treatment, Dan knew that he'd also be the first to acknowledge that, however unjust it was, money was power. And he hoped that his friend's now quieter bearing meant that Walter understood what Dan had hoped he would; that the threat of financial ruin for the hospital was a way Walter's partner could still have his back and guard him while he was out of sight in the operating room.

Dan nodded at Walter, who stayed still and kept his eyes fixed on him while the nurse drew clear liquid into the syringe and injected it into his intravenous line.

***

Still wondering at the surprise litigious outburst from Mr. Dreiberg (who frankly didn't look like the kind of guy who could afford to have a team of lawyers in his pocket--he looked more like a teaching assistant from one of the local colleges to her), Jackie checked Walter's forearm to make sure he hadn't pulled his intravenous line loose when he attacked Cooper. Then she injected a fresh bolus of morphine sulfate into Walter's IV.

It was a much stronger dosage than she'd normally give, but if anyone ever needed extra mellowing out it was this guy. And considering how touchy he'd been so far about people coming near his body, she really, really wanted this man to be as calm as possible (meaning, semiconscious) while he was x-rayed and shaved down for surgery.

Jackie sighed, looking ahead and dreading the pain in the ass that this guy was pretty much guaranteed to be as far as post-operative care went.

 _That first sponge bath is going to be a laugh riot_ , she thought. _Maybe I should try and talk Eleanor into keeping him fully sedated until it's time to discharge him._

Gratifyingly quickly, Walter's eyes dulled and lost focus and his eyelids drooped. His hands, which had been fisted white-knuckled at his sides, now lay partly open, fingers uncurling as the opiate leached his conscious muscle control away. Jackie noticed that his heavy-lidded unfocused gaze stayed on his friend Daniel, following him.

"All right, let's get him on the trolley. Thor, let's go." The male nurse nodded and positioned the gurney beside the bed, then helped her move the now rather boneless Walter from the exam bed to the gurney.

***

Dan helped the male nurse Thor (when he heard the man's name Dan flashed for a weird moment on the sledgehammer-swinging gang member and the Mjolnir crack Dan had made to Rorschach) swing the gurney around and roll it out into the corridor. As he did, he slipped one of his hands into his partner's limp, half-open fist. The fingers twitched and curled in against his and Walter's bleary eyes opened and focused on Dan. His eyes cleared and regained something of their normal intensity.

Walter studied Dan as if he were trying to fix his partner's face in his memory, and for a moment Dan saw someone much younger and very scared looking out at him from under the harsh lines of his partner's homely angular face.

"Hey. I'll see you soon, buddy."

Dan tried to make it sound like it was beyond doubt. But when he saw the tight expressions etched on the women's faces a cold finger slid down his spine because doctors weren't supposed to look as concerned as they did, not unless something was very wrong.

As they approached a set of double doors, Jackie looked at Dan and held up her hand, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, you can't come any further. We'll take him from here."

Dan stood and watched them take his partner away from him. The double doors swung shut and he was left standing in the corridor feeling keenly alone.

***

Jackie hoped that this new influx of sudden pain signified only that Walter's appendix had ruptured a little further. Hopefully it didn't indicate that something more significant had burst or been torn as a result of his brief fracas with Cooper. But she was starting to get a bad feeling about this one, and she could tell that Eleanor was concerned too.

As she helped push the gurney through the swinging doors to the corridor that led to the x-ray area, Dreiberg's eyes met hers and she saw a familiar look in them, one she'd seen many times before. It was the look of someone who was just realizing that if things went badly in the operating room this would be the last time they saw the person being rolled away from them. It was a look that said, _"Please. Please understand that this person is different. I can't do without them. Please don't let my (father/mother/brother/spouse/lover) die._ "

And as always, there was really nothing she could say to that appeal because there were, of course, no guarantees. All she could do was what she always did in that situation; nod and give him her most confident smile, and hope that she wasn't lying to the man.

The trip to the imaging lab was uneventful, their patient seeming to sleep all the way through it. As they positioned the gurney beside the x-ray table and got ready to shift Walter over to the table, though, he stirred and his eyes opened.

Walter turned his head, glassy eyes wide and searching, arms and legs moving sluggishly as if he were trying to tread water. His muddled gaze lit on O'Hara for a long moment, then darkened and he muttered, slurring his words a little,

"Don't want a woman doctor. Don'…don't want your hands in me. Not right."

O'Hara 'tsk'ed and put a hand on his neck to check his pulse, frowning in concern as she felt its elevated rhythm.

"Yes, well, you're not my dream patient either, so I guess we'll just both have to learn to live with disappointment, won't we?"

He turned his head fretfully away from her touch and Jackie tensed as his bony hand came up and his fingers curled around O'Hara's wrist. But there was no real strength behind the feeble effort he made to push her hand away, mumbling,

"Stop touching me."

O'Hara looked slightly amused but mostly annoyed.

"Mmm, charming. And yet here we are, me saving your chauvinistic little ginger hide regardless. Life's odd that way, isn't it?"

He grumbled something indistinct, which trailed off into a little honest-to-God growl as his eyes closed and he seemed to drop back into a light sleep. O'Hara looked up and traded half-amused, half-amazed looks with Jackie.

"Did he just _growl_ at me? Little bull terrier."

Jackie grinned at her. "I don't know, I think he's starting to like you."

O'Hara snorted. "Obviously, just what I was thinking. If only I were looking for a man who was fluent in collie. All right, let's get his pictures taken while he's still nice and sleepy, I think that will work out best for everyone."

As they positioned the semiconscious Walter on the x-ray table, O'Hara paused with her hand under his back and frowned.

"Thor, roll him up on his side for a moment, would you? Thank you." She lifted one edge of the johnny gown to reveal a bristling line of sutures on their patient's back.

Jackie followed O'Hara's finger as she ran it lightly over the row of neat stitches just below the curve of Walter's ribs, inspecting the injury. The wound, a long clean cut, looked to be maybe a week old. The stitches were neat and tight, but something about them looked strange to Jackie and she could see from O'Hara's expression that her friend saw something odd there too. O'Hara touched the sutures again and said,

"Fitch's notes don't mention this laceration on his back. Hm. Well, it seems to be healing fine and we've got bigger things to worry about now. But I want to have another look at that later on."

Jackie nodded. O'Hara was right. In the grand scheme of things this came far down the list in importance; right now it didn't really matter. But she had seen enough knife wounds (as had O'Hara) to know one when she saw it. And she was willing to bet good money that those stitches hadn't been done in any emergency room.

Walter seemed to be completely asleep as they took x-rays of his abdomen. When the technician indicated that the pictures were ready, Jackie followed O'Hara into the adjacent room, leaving Thor behind to monitor Walter. Jackie wasn't sure a babysitter was necessary at this point; the man seemed pretty out of it---but you never knew. She wouldn't be at all shocked to find out that this guy had a surprise or two left in him.

As she clipped the x-rays up on the backlit glass board, O'Hara sighed wearily. Jackie looked at her and said, "What?"

Without looking back at her, eyes fixed on the pictures, O'Hara murmured in an oddly distant voice,

"You know, I'd be extremely grateful if I could have just one week where some wanker does not express the opinion that it's against God's plan and the laws of nature for a woman to be a surgeon. That's all."

Jackie looked at her and nodded, saying nothing. O'Hara continued to study Walter's x-rays in silence for a minute or so. When she spoke again, her voice was back to its brisk professional self.

"Hm. Don't like the look of those intestines, they're certainly a bit inflamed. On the plus side, I'm not seeing any gross damage; no obvious masses or pneumoperitoneum. "

"That's...mostly good," Jackie said. No visible air in his abdominal cavity was definitely a good sign for Walter, as well as being an indication that a perforated appendix was looking more and more likely as the culprit here.

As she pulled the pictures down from the backlit wall panel, O'Hara said off-handedly,

"So what's the story with Mister Dan, anyway? Seemed like more than just a friend to me. He's not a relation; when he was beating his chest and invoking solicitors he said 'my family', not 'our family'. What do you think? Rich boyfriend?"

Jackie snorted. "Rich? Please. Did he look like he had money falling out of his pockets to you? Complete bluff." O'Hara smiled at that. Jackie shrugged and continued, "He just introduced himself as his 'friend', read into that what you will. But if I had to guess, I'd say boyfriend, yeah. He seems a little overprotective to be just a friend."

"Hmm. I imagine you're right, not that it matters. Just curious." O'Hara tucked the x-rays back into their folder and turned to leave.

"All right, the OR should be ready for us by now; I called when Zoey brought me the report. Let's get this one on the table and see what sort of nastiness is going on inside of him."


	13. Chapter 13

Hazy as his mind, Walter's surroundings drifted in and out of focus. Pain still wound through his guts like hot wire but it had once more become remote, its devastating pressure dimmed and made concealable again by the fresh narcotic in his system.

He registered through his drugged fog that he'd been lifted and moved from the cold table back onto the thinly padded gurney and that he was now moving down a hallway painted in a pale industrial green which made him think of the gymnasium walls at Charlton.

Daniel had been made to stay behind and he was now at the mercy of these people. Walter couldn't hold back a thin groan of distress at the thought. He hadn't known that there were female surgeons and it seemed so terribly wrong that this strange woman would soon be cutting through his skin, pulling it apart and insinuating her hands into the innermost secret workings of his body in an intrusion far more revolting and intimate than any he had previously thought of.

He closed his eyes against the glare from the overhead ceiling lights and wondered, as well as his sluggish mind would allow him to, about what Daniel had told the doctor and nurses.

Clever Daniel had found a way to defend him even when physically unable to be at Walter's side, and if he'd been alone Walter might have smiled at the thought. (There were few things about himself in which Walter ever let himself feel open pride; but the fact that decent, honest, brilliant Daniel had agreed to partner up with him was one of them.) Walter felt a swell of fierce gratitude and warmth toward his partner that, for the moment, made his anxiety fade to something barely noticeable.

But there was something that puzzled Walter about it, too. He was well aware that constructing Archie and the vast, fascinating wealth of crime fighting gadgetry housed beneath the brownstone must have cost a lot of money. Walter had always thought that building them had eaten up the lion's share of the wealth that Daniel had inherited from his father and he'd assumed that his partner was now a man of comfortable but modest means. Daniel certainly didn't dress lavishly or furnish his house in the ostentatious decor that Walter always assumed one found in wealthy peoples' homes.

Rorschach was certain that he could tell when his partner was lying about something. And though he'd heard a brittle layer of discomfort in Daniel's voice as he threatened the hospital with financial ruin if Walter came to harm, he could tell that Daniel wasn't lying; he believed without a doubt that he could do it. This put Daniel's financial status far, far above what Walter had ever thought it to be, and he wasn't entirely sure what he thought of that.

Doors swung open and closed, and the gurney came to a stop. He felt himself being moved again from the rolling table to a stationary one and was dimly aware of his arms and legs being straightened. There was motion around him, and people talking. He made an effort to wake himself farther and catch what was being said. It was so difficult to think, though. His thoughts were like wet sand, heavy and difficult to navigate, and it was tempting to allow himself to succumb to the drug and slide under its numbing blanket once more.

***

Walter seemed like he was pretty out of it now. Jackie leaned in and called his name. His eyes opened and he looked at her, but his gaze was unfocused and it was unclear whether he really saw her.

"Walter? Can you hear me? We're going to put an anesthesia mask on you now and give you something that will make you sleep, all right?"

Jackie put a hand on Walter's forehead, gently rubbing her thumb across it to try and focus what little attention he had on her, and told him to start counting down from one hundred. O'Hara said, "Ready? All right, mask him down."

***

The word 'mask' jumped out of the confusion of voices and Walter roused, alarmed that one of these people had somehow deduced what (or even worse, _who_ ) he really was.

The blonde woman, the nurse who'd taken his clothes and his blood, placed a hand on his forehead. Stroking it with her thumb in what was probably meant to be a soothing gesture, she told him to count backward from one hundred.

Chafing under her touch, Walter wondered at her nonsensical request as he strained to catch the thread of their conversation. A voice, which he recognized as the woman doctor's, said, "Ready? All right, mask him down."

He felt a flicker of relief as he put her words together and realized that it was a verb; his identity was still safe. The relief became a flicker of apprehension as he reviewed her words more carefully, trying to decipher what she'd meant because it sounded like something was about to happen.

Then a hard oval mask with a hose attached was brought down over the lower half of his face, covering his nose and mouth. But this mask was nothing like the comforting protection of his supple, shifting second skin. It was hard and unyielding, and the thin stream of air hissing into it through the hose had a strange rubbery chemical smell.

Every muscle tightened as ancient half-buried memory surged up and screamed that he knew this odor, too. A surge of adrenaline-laced visceral terror rose from deep inside, spiraling through his ribcage and slicing the narcotic fog into ribbons. His chest felt like it was trying to cave in on itself and his throat constricted as he remembered.

_February, 1946_

_After they call his mother to the school and finally discover where he's hiding in the school's basement, one of the teachers drives them to the hospital. In the back seat of the car his mother's hand grips him like a manacle, fury making her fingers bite deep into the soft flesh of his undernourished spindly arm (leaving a red mark that will be a wide black and blue ring the next day)._

_Inside the hospital Walter clings to her, desperate, knowing it will just make her angrier but he's too far gone to care. He sobs and begs, voice hoarse and choking and fumbling over itself, promising to be good, to do everything she tells him to do if she will only please, please take him home and not let the doctor cut him._

_His mother pries him off of her and holds him at arms length, disgusted and embarrassed. Her hand rises and swings down in an open-handed slap that changes its trajectory in mid-strike to become a hard, stinging swat across his rear. (Walter knows that if they'd been alone the blow would have fallen across his face, instead.) She hisses in his ear that he'd better stop this happy horseshit right now and just settle down and do what the doctors say._

_After that she hands him off to the nurses saying that they can keep him and walks out, leaving him alone in this place that reeks of disinfectant and sickness. And he knows then that she's gone and left him at the mercy of these terrifying strangers in white coats (and even at this tender age, he's met enough of his mother's customers and the shadowy men who inhabit their neighborhood to understand that the worst monsters can look just like people when they want to)._

_He fights and screams until he tastes pennies as blood from his inflamed and scored tonsils flecks his lips. But as hard as he fights and as much as he screams, it doesn't matter; it makes no difference in the end. They are far too strong and he is finally held down flat on his back, hands pinning his arms and legs firmly to the cold hard tabletop._

_One of them busies himself on Walter's left with something and he feels a sharp beesting of pain as a needle sinks into his upper arm. The hand holding the empty syringe comes too close to his face as the doctor pulls away and Walter bites hard, feeling a primal flicker of savage satisfaction poke through the maelstrom of his terror as the man yells in pain._

_More hands clamp onto either side of his head, holding it immobile, and he can't get away as they place a hard oval of glass and rubber over his nose and mouth and there's the hiss of air inside the mask along with a strange smell. And it's not just visceral animal fear he feels now; it has gone beyond that into pure horror. He knows that they are going to make him sleep now and when he wakes up his legs will be gone. And it's not sure whether he faints from terror or succumbs to the ether first, but that hopeless overwhelming horror is the last thing he feels as the dark swallows him down its bottomless gullet._

***

It all went smoothly at first; Walter barely reacted when the mask was settled snugly over his lower face. Then he took a deep breath of the etherized air mixture and it was as if that first breath flipped a switch inside his head and flooded his darkened brain with light.

Walter's eyes opened and a violent shudder ran through his body. He grabbed at the mask, making a high, tight whining noise in the back of his throat. Jackie could see his eyes rolling wide and terrified above the rim of the anesthesia mask.

"Shit! Thor!"

"Got him!"

The big nurse lunged for Walter's arms. As the panicked man started to thrash, Jackie and O'Hara threw themselves across his legs from opposite sides of the table. The anesthesiologist swore and gamely tried to keep the mask held tight to Walter's face.

Their patient was wiry and fast and frighteningly strong, but the morphine in his system was dragging his reactions down and it wasn't the first time at this particular type of rodeo for any of them. Thor grabbed Walter's wrists and captured his arms, folding them across his chest and pinning them. He then expertly used his leverage and the corded muscle in his own burly arms to prevent Walter from freeing his hands or sitting up, all without compressing his patient's chest or putting weight on his abdomen.

Jackie bore down as hard as she could on his thighs while O'Hara held his lower legs. Even with their combined weight at work they were hard pressed to keep his legs on the table. His heels slipped and slid over the polished metal as he tried hard to kick them off and Jackie imagined, as she was jolted around, that this must be a little bit what riding a bucking horse was like.

Mercifully, the anesthesia took effect even faster than it normally would, assisted by the deep lungfuls of etherized air that Walter was sucking in as he gasped for breath under the mask. In less than twenty seconds his eyelids fluttered closed and his frantic writhing soon subsided into the normal involuntary spastic motions of someone going into the second stage of general anesthesia.

They all let out a collective sigh of relief and Jackie reflected that she'd been right after all; the man _had_ had one more surprise left in him.

O'Hara straightened her uniform and blew a stray strand of dark hair out of her eyes as she looked at Walter, eyebrows raised. "Well. Usually they give a little more warning than that before they go berserk. What the _hell_ was that about, any idea?"

Jackie slid off of the man's legs and put her own uniform to rights. Wiping her brow, she shook her head and said, "I have no clue. He seemed like he was going to be okay with it at first, then boom! Jesus."

Thor let out a long breath and gave the two women a raised-brow look of his own as he rearranged Walter's arms to lie peacefully at his sides. "Whew. This guy's got some serious strength on him. Ladies, when he wakes up can we remember to ask him which button we just pushed so that we can make sure we _never_ do it again?"

O'Hara nodded at Thor, looking a bit shaken herself. "Indeed." She saw Jackie wince as she straightened up and stretched. "Are you all right, Jacks? How's your back?"

Jackie grimaced, massaging her lower back and feeling a twinge that might or might not turn into something worse later on. "Ow. I might bum a Percodan off of you later, if that's okay."

"Of course, just remind me. Thor, get his gown off, will you? Let's get him prepped."

Jackie started preparing to shave and disinfect their patient's abdominal area, but stopped as Thor removed the johnny gown and she got her first good look at Walter's unclothed torso.

In addition to the unsurprising constellations of heavy freckling across the man's body (compliments of the excess pheomelanin in his skin that colored his hair so vividly red), his skin was marked with a multitude of bruises in different stages of healing. There were also many scars, also of different ages.

The most spectacular bruise, however, was on his abdomen directly over his appendix. Dark purple, its edges morphing into yellow and green, it was about half a foot in diameter. In the center was a smaller round circle of a darker blue-black hue. Jackie whistled.

"Wow. That's a beauty all right. Coop's notes mentioned a severe contusion on his abdomen but that doesn't really do it justice, does it? I wonder how that happened?"

O'Hara shrugged, looking impressed. "Couldn't begin to venture a guess. Looks like someone took the blunt end of a fence post and rammed it into his stomach, though, doesn't it?"

Aside from the journal of violence tattooed on his skin, Walter was in spectacular shape. _He must live at a gymnasium,_ Jackie thought. _You sure as hell don't get a physique like that working the pedals on a sewing machine. Bet the last guy who laughed at what he does for a living is still picking his teeth up off the floor._


	14. Chapter 14

Left standing by himself in the corridor, Dan had no idea what to do next. The sudden absence of the urgent driving need to get help for his partner and to make sure Walter didn't bolt or cause mayhem amongst the hospital staff left him feeling suddenly adrift.

All there was left for him to do now was wait for them to come and tell him that Rorschach--that _Walter_ was going to be all right. The idea that they might come and tell him something different bubbled up on a frisson of unease and he shoved the thought firmly to the back of his mind. His partner was as tough as they made them; of course he would be okay. Of course.

But where was he supposed to wait? Dan didn't want to return to the emergency room. He assumed that most hospitals had someplace where people waiting for family members to come out of surgery were supposed to stay, but he had no idea where that would be.

People hurried past him, brushing by with the occasional questioning glance, but no one stopped to talk to him or ask why he was standing alone in the hallway. And now that the adrenaline rush and acute stress of the past few hours were fading, Dan was becoming very aware that it had been almost thirty hours since he'd last slept. If he was going to stay awake and alert until his partner was out of surgery, he could really use some coffee.

“Nosocomephobia.”

Startled, Dan looked around a little wildly and found the student nurse Zoey standing at his elbow. She smiled up at him, her round face beaming above her yellow uniform. Dan wondered if he was more tired than he'd thought and just wasn't hearing things right.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Your friend. He has nosocomephobia. Fear of hospitals." She continued, sounding as if she was reading from a textbook and Dan wondered if she'd just come back from looking the information up. "Generally manifested as an irrational fear that if one goes into the hospital, they won't make it out alive."

Taken aback, Dan regarded her, eyebrows raised. Then he shrugged and decided that he was tired and punchy enough to simply roll with this odd conversation.

"Nosocomephobia, huh?"

The student nurse pursed her lips and nodded knowingly at him.

“Uh huh. Fear of hospitals is more common than you’d think, you know. Yup, I've seen quite a few like him come through these doors.”

Her carefully bland expression said that Walter was no novelty to her, obviously wanting Dan to realize that she saw _dozens_ of patients just like him every week. It didn’t really work, Dan thought.

He suddenly felt a weird sense of familiarity as if he knew this girl from somewhere, though he was positive he’d never met her before in his life. There was just something very familiar to him about the way she delivered her information.

Then it hit him. The way she talked reminded him of _himself_ back in junior high and high school. When he’d been Dan Nerdbird, science geek and bird freak extraordinaire, trying so desperately hard to get people to accept him.

One of the many unsuccessful things he’d done back then to try and get others to like him was to try and dazzle them with how much he knew, imagining all the while that he was throwing off an aura of extreme coolness (because, well, who _wouldn’t_ think being smart was sexy?), when he was really just trying way too hard.

Despite his fatigue and his gnawing concern for Rorschach, he felt a tiny spark of kinship for this short plain girl with her mousy, slightly messy brown hair and exaggerated mannerisms. He smiled at her.

"Zoey, right? Well, Zoey, you might have seen other patients with nos—nosocomephobia? Yeah. But I doubt you've seen anyone like Walter."

She looked at him curiously and said,

"Why, because he punched Dr Cooper out? Pfhht." She made an exaggerated waving motion, dismissing the idea as she continued. "The last guy we had who got phobic about being in the hospital actually bit Dr. O'Hara on the arm. She had to get a tetanus booster. Jackie was so mad at him, she yanked his catheter out in one fell swoop, ' _zing!_ '."

She illustrated with a sweeping gesture, pantomiming the action. It looked to Dan like someone trying to start a stubborn outboard motor and he cringed in sympathy despite himself.

"Boy, did he yell! Yeah, he behaved himself after that. After he stopped crying." she finished, grinning at him.

A bit freaked out by the turn the conversation had taken, Dan made himself smile back. "Wow, I bet he did. Uh, Zoey, can you show me where I'm supposed to wait while Walter's in surgery?"

She nodded, looking him up and down appraisingly. "Of course. Uhmm, you look…really tired, Dan."

Dan took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Actually, I am, I didn't get any sleep last night. How long do you think Walter's operation is going to take?"

Zoey shrugged. "Hard to say, it depends on what they find. But it'll probably be at least a few hours. And it'll take a while after that for him to recover from the anesthesia. Walk with me." She gave Dan a come-along gesture and started walking down the hall.

"I'll show you where you can wait. There's a lounge near intensive care that has couches and a television set. You can stay there if you're going to wait for him to come out of surgery."

He nodded and followed her down the hallway. As they passed a set of double doors, she pointed at them and said,

"The cafeteria's down that way. I'll take you there after I show you the ICU lounge so you can get some coffee or something to eat if you want. Then you can go back to the lounge and maybe catch a nap if there's a couch free. When Walter's out of recovery I'll come get you and take you to his room, okay? How does that sound?"

He smiled gratefully at her. "It actually sounds really great. Thank you, Zoey."

The ICU visitor lounge turned out to be a fairly large room equipped with several couches and some comfortable-looking chairs, all presided over by a plaster statue of some robed saintly figure or other set into a recessed wall niche (Dan was not really up on the various Catholic saints and had no idea who it was supposed to be). There were a few people already there, all in various stages of obvious fatigue. All of them looked up sharply when Dan and Zoey stepped into the room. Then as one they dropped their gazes, expressions dulling when they realized that neither of the people in the doorway was a doctor.

Zoey escorted him back to the cafeteria and left him outside its entrance, promising again to let him know when Walter was out of surgery. He then watched her bip merrily off down the hall, shaking his head as she threw an exaggerated military salute at a fellow worker who ignored her and kept walking.

Fifteen minutes later Dan was back in the intensive care lounge with a large cup of coffee and a sandwich. He ensconced himself on one of the couches and settled in to wait, doing his best to ignore the apprehension gnawing at the back of his mind and not fret about his partner who would, of course, be _fine_. In a few days Walter would be well enough to be discharged and Dan would take him home.

***

Jackie finished shaving Walter's abdomen and upper groin, marveling again at the sheer number of scars and contusions on the man. The record of trauma that was written on his body in the form of bruises and healing cuts, old white scars and barely-formed new pink ones, was truly impressive. This was a man who either regularly got into serious fights, the kind that often involved edged weapons, or he was on the receiving end of some long term and ongoing physical abuse.

Thinking about Walter's grim face and hard eyes and the way he'd effortlessly knocked Coop unconscious with one punch, Jackie was definitely inclined to think it was the first one. This guy didn't strike her as somebody who'd allow himself to be cut or beaten up regularly, and his friend Dan hadn't struck her as the type who enjoyed dishing that sort of thing out; although you never knew what people got up to in their private lives.

O'Hara was frowning as she looked Walter over and Jackie assumed that she was thinking along the same lines. Her frown grew deeper and faintly worried and Jackie wondered whether something else might be going through O'Hara's mind. Reaching out to trace a long track of pink new scar tissue that ran across Walter's chest, O'Hara looked up to meet Jackie's gaze and said,

"I don't like this. I think that after I close up, we're going to stop by Imaging on the way to recovery and take a full panel of x-rays on him. I want more than just the abdominal studies."

Now Jackie was sure that O'Hara suspected that something else, something strange, was going on with Walter. She wasn't sure what it might be, but she trusted Eleanor's instincts. So instead of questioning it, she simply nodded in agreement.

"I think that's a good idea."

The anesthesiologist gave O'Hara a thumb up, indicating that Walter was fully under and stable. "He's good, Dr. O'Hara, you can start."

Before picking up her scalpel, O'Hara patted the unconscious man's stomach and said,

"Sorry, young man. Pity to spoil a perfect washboard tummy, but I'm afraid it can't be helped." She leaned in and made her first incision, beginning the laparotomy.

Jackie grimaced when she saw the dull peritoneum revealed by O'Hara's initial incision. She wasn't surprised when it parted under the scalpel to reveal a badly ruptured appendix nestled amidst the creamy off-white exudate typical of peritoneal infection.

But the sheer volume of thick, inspissated suppuration that had accumulated around the man's swollen viscera _was_ a surprise to her. And to O'Hara, she could tell. Jackie whistled softly. "Wow."

O'Hara looked at Jackie, her gray eyes serious above the green surgical mask.

"Jacks, this one's a complete mess inside. This is far more advanced than I thought. His appendix must have ruptured at least a day ago, maybe more than that. Definitely more than twenty-four hours ago; this peritonitis is at least that old. Did he actually come into the emergency room under his own power?"

Jackie nodded. "I saw him. He not only walked in here, but undressed himself and had enough energy left over to punch out Dr. Cooper when he got fresh."

Despite her obvious dismay, O'Hara did a double take. "Come again?"

"Coop did the physical eval on this guy, which went fine until he started the rectal examination. Which Coop did _not_ first explain in detail to Walter, here. Who, it turns out, has evidently never had a rectal exam before. Or any kind of physical exam, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, he took offense when Coop shoved a finger up his ass without sufficient warning and punched him out cold. Zoey’s still on cloud nine about it, I'm sure."

O'Hara shook her head in amazement.

"Well, his pain threshold must be sky high. This far along into peritonitis he should have been wheeled into Emergency curled up in a little ball. He certainly shouldn't have waltzed in under his own steam. Was he already doped up on painkillers?"

"Not when he came in."

O'Hara shook her head in reluctant admiration as she efficiently tied off the ruptured organ and prepared to excise it.

"Tough little creature."

She removed Walter's burst appendix then began the delicate task of gently lavaging as much pus and suppurative material out of his abdominal cavity as possible, taking meticulous care not to damage any of the inflamed viscera. Jackie assisted with the lavage, watching O'Hara search for any intestinal nicks or tears as she did.

As O'Hara started infusing an antibiotic solution into Walter's abdominal cavity, she caught Jackie's eye and said,

"Well, one small mercy; the infection's walled off by the omentum and viscera, it hasn't yet spread through the entire peritoneum. And even better, I can't find any intestinal perforations. They're badly inflamed, but I don't think anything's ruptured, which is a small miracle in a case this severe."

As O'Hara began closing up she gave a small shake of her head and looked at Jackie, her eyes grave.

”Jacks, I don’t know that this one's going to make it. I'm willing to bet that his blood work's going to come back showing sepsis and if it does, I'm not really optimistic about his chances."

Jackie nodded in reluctant agreement. She'd seen people admitted with peritonitis before and was well aware that cases which went untreated for more than twenty four hours or so stood a good chance of being fatal, even with aggressive treatment.

"Shit. Well, if he's septicemic let's just hope it's not too advanced for the antibiotics to get hold of. And cross our fingers that he's as tough as he looks and as serious about living as he is about guarding his virtue from Cooper."

"Amen," O'Hara said as she finished closing up and started cleaning blood away from the incision site.

"I think I'm going to keep him heavily sedated for at least the next twenty-four hours, maybe for the next few days. Aside from pain control, he's going to need all of his energy to fight this infection and I don't want him squandering any of it on leaping out of bed every ten minutes to try and escape our evil clutches or getting into fisticuffs with Thor."

Jackie nodded. "From what I've seen so far, I think that's a wise decision."

Walter's unconscious body was carefully moved back onto a gurney and they set off for the Imaging department where O'Hara took additional x-rays of Walter's arms and legs, chest, hands and feet. As she lined the unit up to take images of his skull, Jackie's curiosity finally got the better of her.

"Okay, what are you looking for?"

O'Hara shrugged. "Maybe nothing. And with the way things look inside of him it's likely that it won't really matter…but with all of this external skin trauma I want to check and make sure that he doesn't have any internal damage, bone fractures, or head injuries we need to worry about. I'd hate to miss something like that because we were solely focused on treating his peritonitis."

Jackie could tell that there was more to it than that and felt a bit annoyed that O'Hara was holding back on her, but she let it go for now. She knew that O'Hara was not looking forward to telling Walter's friend Dan that things had gotten complicated and there was a good chance that Walter might not make it. O'Hara caught her eye and nodded, sighing.

"I'm afraid we may soon be finding out whether Mr. Dreiberg was bluffing about suing the hospital."


	15. Chapter 15

Ensconced on one of the couches in the ICU lounge, Dan was experiencing that strange mix of apprehension, worry, and crushing boredom peculiar to those who wait for news in a hospital.

He ate his sandwich, drank his coffee, read several magazines without remembering a word of any of them and pretended to watch a game show that one of the room's other occupants had selected on the television. He then stretched out on the couch to take a nap without much success; Dan closed his eyes and tried, but each time he was on the verge of sleep he'd hear someone approaching in the corridor outside and his eyes would fly open and he'd listen, tense, until the footsteps passed by.

It was profoundly unsettling and Dan couldn't help thinking about visiting his father in the hospital during his final illness. He remembered sitting for hours in a similar waiting room at Mass General Hospital, except then he'd been in high school and his mother had been sitting in a chair beside him, alternately shredding Kleenex in her hands and attempting to help Dan with a crossword puzzle. And no plaster saint in a wall niche had stood watch over that room.

He wondered how long a person had to stay in the hospital after having their appendix removed. At least a few days, he assumed. _Maybe even a week in Rorschach's case_ , he thought, _I know his appendix must have ruptured. He had that fever and he was in so much pain at the end there before they knocked him out. I just hope to God he calms down once he comes to. Oh, who am I kidding? Just because he wakes up with his kidneys intact doesn't mean he's going to be magically convinced that they're not going to try for them again later on. I just hope he doesn't slug anyone else._

Dan sighed and rested his head on his arm, He closed his eyes, determined to try and get a little sleep. _I'd better, it's going to be a long week._

***

Full panel of X-rays completed, O'Hara called the laboratory to check on Walter's blood results. Jackie didn't need to ask; she could see from her friend's expression that the news wasn't good. O'Hara hung up the phone and shook her head.

"Well, nothing we didn't already know, really. He does have sepsis. Hopefully it's not too advanced and we can bring it under control before he goes into septic shock. It's really up to him and the antibiotics now. So far he seems like a sturdy little pit pony; I'd say he's got as good a chance as anyone would of pulling through. But I still wouldn't put his odds at higher than fifty-fifty."

They moved Walter to a room in the intensive care unit. Working together quickly and efficiently as always, Jackie and O'Hara catheterized the unconscious man, inserted a nasal cannula to provide additional blood oxygenation and supplemented his intravenous fluids with a mixture of strong antibiotics and sedatives.

"There," said O'Hara, standing back and surveying their patient. "We'll keep him knocked out for a few days so we won't have to worry about putting him in restraints to keep him away from those tubes."

Jackie nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with O'Hara's decision. From what she'd seen so far she was sure that if this guy woke up while he was partially intubated, the first thing he'd probably do would be rip out the cannula and his IV line.

"You know Coop's probably going to insist on restraints anyway, even if he's fully sedated. He's going to be awfully pissed that he has to walk around with raccoon eyes for the next week or so. Not to mention that I'm positive his nose is broken."

O'Hara chuckled as she finished her notations on Walter's chart.

"That's right, I'd forgotten about that. So give me your opinion, Jacks. From what you've seen, do you think he's actually dangerous? Should he be restrained?"

Jackie turned that one over in her mind for a long moment. The guy _had_ literally punched Cooper across the room. But there had been some provocation there, although it didn't make it any less an assault and battery.

"Honestly? I think the guy's a little--no, he's a lot nutty about being in the hospital. I don't know what's going to happen the first time he's conscious and it's time to change his catheter or give him a sponge bath. I think it could turn into a real circus."

"But aside from that, he seemed pretty rational to me. As long as the candy stripers and nurses know to be careful around him, and no one else tries to stick a finger up his ass while he's awake, I think he'll be okay to deal with."

She shrugged at O'Hara.

"I say give him a chance and see if he behaves himself. With any luck his friend Dan will drop by to visit fairly often once he's awake. He seemed to be able to ride herd on him pretty well."

O'Hara finished annotating Walter's chart and handed it to Jackie saying,

"All right, no restraints for now. I'll talk to Cooper about it. Now, we need to notify his family."

Jackie looked at the intake information on the clipboard.

"There's nothing on here under next of kin. The only contact he gave us was Mr. Dreiberg."

O'Hara looked over her shoulder, frowning.

"Well, maybe Mr. Dreiberg knows how to contact the family. Do you know if he left, or was he going to wait for Walter to come out of surgery?"

"He didn't say, but I'm pretty sure he waited. I can go by the nurses' station to see if anyone there knows where he is."

"Hey!"

Jackie turned around to see Zoey leaning in the door. She smiled at Jackie and O'Hara, then walked in to give Walter a curious once-over.

"How soon can his friend Dan come in and see him? I told him that I'd let him know what room he was in as soon as he got settled and was awake."

 _Good timing, Zoey._ Jackie rechecked the IV tubing, making sure there were no tangles, and gestured at Zoey.

"You might as well go get him now, Zoey, because the awake part isn't going to happen for a while. We're keeping him sedated. His friend can come in and see him, though; O'Hara needs to talk to him."

"How's he doing?" Zoey's smile faltered as she looked at Jackie's expression and O'Hara's grave face. "Uh-oh. Not so great?"

Jackie said, "His appendix was indeed ruptured and he has peritonitis and septicemia."

Zoey winced and said "Ouch, that's not good."

Jackie shook her head. "No, Zoey, it's not. So you know where his friend is, right?"

"Yeah, I parked him in the ICU lounge. I'm pretty sure he's still there, he said he was going to wait."

"Good. Go get him. We need to find out who this man's next of kin is and notify them. Hopefully Mr. Dreiberg will know whether he's got any family to contact."

Zoey left, far more soberly than when she'd popped her head in the door.

***

Dan had finally dropped into a light sleep when the sound of someone calling his name dragged him back up toward reluctant consciousness. The sensation of someone patting his shoulder roused him and he opened his eyes. Confused, he looked around, blinking, his groggy mind expecting to see Archie's control console and Rorschach leaning in and tapping his shoulder to wake him, his mask swimming with annoyed patterns.

But instead of Archie's interior he saw some kind of waiting room, with a plaster saint in a wall niche smiling beneficently down at him. And it wasn't Rorschach shaking his shoulder; it was a young woman with sandy brown hair pinned messily up on top of her head. He opened his mouth to ask the girl where he was, then it all clicked into place and he remembered. Knuckling sleep out of his eyes, he laboriously pushed back the mental cobwebs and mumbled, "Oh, yeah. Hi, uh…Zoey."

As soon as he said her name, the reason why he was here came back to him and the resulting alarm made things spring into sharp focus. Sitting up quickly, he grabbed his glasses off the end table and put them on, then looked at the young woman.

"He's out of surgery? Can I see him?"

She nodded, her eyes solemn. "I came to get you. He hasn't been out of surgery very long and he's still asleep, but you can see him now. And Dr. O'Hara needs to talk to you. Come on, I'll take you to his room."

Dan looked at his wristwatch and frowned. Could that time be right? Almost seven o'clock? He didn't like that one bit---Walter had gone into surgery around eleven in the morning. It shouldn't have taken so long.

When it became obvious that Zoey wasn't going to tell him anything more, he got up quickly and followed her. Bright slivers of apprehension slunk around inside him like feral cats as he walked down the hallway, sinking claws into his spine and quickening his heart.

It wasn't a long trip; the room that Zoey led him to was not far down the hall from the lounge where he'd waited. Eager to get a look at his partner even if he was still asleep, Dan followed close on her heels into the room, then stopped cold.

For a moment, Dan was sure she'd brought him to the wrong room, even though he recognized Jackie and Dr. O'Hara. Because the person in the hospital bed couldn't possibly be his partner; not this pale motionless figure lying on the antiseptic white sheets, thin tubes threaded into his nostrils and into his arm. Rorschach would never be lying in a hospital room like this, weak and helpless and passive. This had to be some other poor soul.

But it wasn't. Dan shook himself and moved to stand next to the bed, looking down at his partner.

Walter's face was harsh and stern, even in sleep; the frown and worry lines less noticeable in repose but still too deeply etched to ever disappear completely. His hair was copper-wire bright against the white pillowcase and his complexion was waxy and far too pale, making the freckles on his face, shoulders and arms stand out vividly against the ashen skin.

A glass bottle hung from a stainless steel rack by his bedside, dripping clear liquid into a tube that ran down and disappeared under a heavy bandage on his forearm. Dan noticed the bulk of additional bandaging over his abdomen underneath the thin hospital gown. Another tube threaded out from under the light cotton blanket at Walter's hip and Dan realized with a shock that it was attached to a clear plastic bag that already contained a tiny bit of urine.

He'd prepared himself to see his partner shaky and weak but awake and already working on intimidating his caretakers. Dan hadn't anticipated seeing him like this and for a moment, he felt the same gut-dropping shock and hollow dismay that he'd experienced the first time he'd seen his father lying white and wan and hooked up to various tubes in a hospital bed after suffering the heart attack that would prove to be his last.

The sight of his partner lying defenseless, with tubes invading his body struck Dan as a terrible violation of his intensely private friend's self; it was just wrong in every way he could think of. He closed his eyes for a moment to block out the sight and gather his wits. Then he opened them and looked at Jackie and O'Hara.

They were watching him patiently and it occurred to Dan that they must have seen the stunned look on his face countless times before, on many other faces. His voice sounded stretched and thin to him as he spoke. "Is he still out from the anesthesia? He should be awake soon, shouldn't he?"

Eyes dark and troubled, he reached out and almost touched the nasal cannula, but instead dropped his hand to skate his fingertips along Walter's arm, stopping at his wrist.

"Why does he have the tubing in his nose, and why does he have the, the…" he pointed to the catheter bag, "er, _that_ , in him? What happened?"

For a brief moment he had the horrible thought that maybe Walter _had_ been right, that he'd known something Dan hadn't known about hospitals.

Dr. O'Hara stepped up and put her hand on Dan's arm, wordlessly urging him to take a step back away from the bed. Dan stayed right where he was with his hand on Walter's wrist. His jaw tightened and the horrified expression in his eyes turned to sternness. O'Hara stopped trying to shift him and said, "The operation took much longer than we originally thought it would because unfortunately, Walter's appendix didn't just rupture a few hours ago. As far as I could tell, it probably ruptured at least a day ago."

Dan suppressed the urge to groan and bury his forehead in the palm of his hand. Of course Rorschach would completely ignore the pain of a burst appendix until it became physically impossible to dismiss. Now that he had a chance to think back on it, he realized that Rorschach had been uncharacteristically quiet and restrained throughout their entire patrol last night, not just afterwards in his kitchen. At the time he'd just chalked it up to one of Rorschach's occasional bouts of moodiness.

O'Hara touched his arm to focus his attention back on her, and continued. "Dan, Walter's situation is very serious. Your friend does have peritonitis and he's also in what we _hope_ are just the early stages of septicemia; blood poisoning. It's a very serious infection."

Dan's head jerked back as he absorbed this news, feeling a bit like he'd just taken a hard punch in a fight. His body reacted accordingly and a flash of adrenaline sharpened his senses and sped up his breathing. He straightened his glasses and nodded at her to continue.

"We're going to keep him fully sedated and unconscious for now. It will allow Walter to concentrate all his energy on fighting this infection, and keep the pain and stress from wearing him down."

"To answer your questions; the nasal cannula's delivering extra oxygen to help prevent hypoxemia. And the catheter is only going to be in while he's unconscious because obviously he can't use a bedpan. It'll also help us monitor his kidney functions; we need to make sure he's producing sufficient urine and that his creatinine levels stay normal."

Dan knew they couldn't possibly give him an answer to his next question but he couldn't help asking it anyway; his voice tight and wavering slightly, he said, "He’ll be all right, won’t he?"

He didn't miss the glance the two women exchanged and his heart sank. O'Hara looked sympathetic as spoke, her voice becoming gentler. "It's not all bad news. Although there’s a lot of inflammation, I didn’t find any perforations in his intestines. Hopefully the antibiotics can get hold of the infection before the sepsis becomes too advanced. As long as he doesn't go into septic shock and his internal organs don't start shutting down, I think he certainly has a fighting chance."

Dan nodded, studying his partner's still form as he took a moment to let the news sink in. After a moment, Jackie cleared her throat and spoke.

"Dan, I'm sorry but we need to get in touch with Walter's family and find out who his next of kin is. Do you have a phone number or know of a way we can contact them? The only contact he gave us on his intake form was you."

Well, that was a stumper. Dan frowned, reluctant to admit that he had no idea what Walter's family situation was. It was possible that Walter had relatives right here in the city; that he had siblings or parents who Dan had, of course, never met. But he doubted it.

Early in their partnership, the first time that Rorschach had been tired enough after a patrol to sleep at the brownstone, Dan had asked if Rorschach wanted to call anyone to let them know where he was. Rorschach's answer had been a terse, clipped, "No one to notify, Nite Owl."

So Dan was fairly confident that his partner lived alone. Whether he had family members who should know that he was in the hospital, though, Dan wasn't so sure.

The second year they'd been partnered, Dan had taken a chance and asked Rorschach to have Thanksgiving dinner with him if he hadn't already promised to be somewhere else. His partner had seemed uncomfortable, then annoyed, then oddly touched as he reluctantly agreed, with never a mention of any family. Since then, he'd spent Thanksgiving, both evening and day, at Dan's place.

In the four years that he'd known him Rorschach had never given the slightest indication that he had any family. Because of that, Dan was pretty sure that if there were any family members in the picture, Walter must be estranged from them somehow.

Dan looked at Jackie and shook his head, spreading his hands out in a helpless gesture. "I---I'm really not sure whether he has any family at all. I don't know of any, he's never mentioned them."

She looked a little surprised at Dan's ignorance, but nodded. "All right, we'll try contacting his workplace. We need to have someone who can make medical decisions for him if it becomes necessary. And we need to have someone who can make other decisions if things don't turn out well."

A cold thread snaked up Dan's spine because he knew she was talking about what would be done with Walter's body if he died. He spoke quickly, trying not to snap at her. "Look, that won't be necessary because he's going to get better. But if…if something bad does happen and there are no family members who step up to make those decisions, I'll take care of everything. You don't have to worry about that."

Jackie looked a little dubious, but nodded at him anyway. "All right. We'll try to get his family information through his workplace."

They left and Dan was alone with Walter once again. Only this time his partner wasn't really there; he was someplace far away, deep in a dreamless narcotic sleep.

Dan sank into the chair next to the bed, a little shell-shocked at the speed with which things had turned deadly serious. He'd been mainly worried about shepherding Walter through several tense and uncomfortable days in the hospital. The possibility of Rorschach dying from this infection had never occurred to him, and he was feeling dizzy and a little ill from the idea.

Next to him in the hospital bed, Walter's body lay quiet, belying the fight against raging infection that was going on inside him. And suddenly Dan felt very much alone. More alone than he'd ever felt in his life.

He touched the back of Walter's hand, saying quietly, "Hey buddy. I hope you can hear me. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here when you wake up, I promise. You'll be all right."

Dan realized that if he was going to stay here until Rorschach was awake and out of danger, that he'd need a few changes of clothes, at the very least. Plus, he just needed to talk to someone right now, badly.

 _I need to call Hollis,_ he thought.


	16. Chapter 16

After thinking about it Dan decided that he should find a pay phone from which to call Hollis, whose name had become all too recognizable since he'd published 'Under the Hood'. The chance, however slim, that some nurse or candystriper might overhear him mentioning Hollis' name or discussing his partner with Hollis was enough to make Dan want to avoid using the phone in Walter's room.

Dan knew that he was indulging in real Rorschach-level paranoia here, but he just didn't want to take even the slightest risk that one of the hospital staff might realize that he knew Hollis Mason and then perhaps, unlikely as it was, make the brilliant intuitive leap from Nite Owl to Nite Owl; and from _there_ realize who Dan and Walter might really be…and talk about it. He pictured the first luckless reporter who managed to sneak in to try and interview the infamous Rorschach in his hospital room and shuddered at the magnitude of that potential disaster.

_Pretty sure I saw some pay phones outside near the emergency room doors when we came in._

He realized that he was hungry again and wondered how late the hospital's cafeteria stayed open. Maybe he should stop and grab some food before he called Hollis. But before he ate, before he found a pay phone from which to call Hollis, he was going to just sit beside his partner for a little while and watch him.

_I've always wanted to be able to look at you and see what's really under that mask. Well, here's my chance to look at you all I want. Damn it, buddy._

Studying Walter's harsh face, Dan hesitated, then reached out and tentatively took his partner's hand between his own broad palms and massaged it, feeling the tendons and fine bones rolling like hard secrets under the rough, calloused skin. Watching his friend's still face intently, as if he were deciphering a clue to a particularly challenging case, Dan said in a low voice, "I know that you're going to be all right. I do. Just…please don't sleep too long, buddy. Okay?"

Leaving one hand curled inside Walter’s, Dan ran his other hand slowly up his partner's arm, feeling the layers of hard muscle under pale, heavily freckled skin. He moved his fingertips over the bony shoulder to trace a careful line along the jutting collarbone and frowned.

_He really doesn't eat enough, does he? He’s all sinew and gristle, no fat at all. He eats a lot--at my place, anyway, but he just burns right through the calories like a hummingbird or a shrew._

Dan moved his hand up to glide over the uncombed hair, running the bright strands through his fingers and rubbing them between his fingertips, intent on absorbing the sensation. Taking in a deep breath, he held it for a moment then blew it out sharply, tension riding the exhalation. Dan sighed again, quietly this time, and stroked his partner’s hair some more. His hand lingered on the side of Walter's face and he swept his thumb gently over the sleeping man’s cheekbone.

He felt more than a bit guilty that he was doing this without his partner's knowledge or permission. Dan knew that Rorschach would never allow himself to be petted like this if he was awake. But he couldn't help it; he needed to touch Walter and reassure himself that his friend was still warm and breathing.

***

Done with her rounds and ready to leave, Jackie decided to look in on Walter Kovacs one more time before she signed out.

She walked into Walter's room. The privacy curtain around the bed was half-drawn and through the gap in the curtain she saw Dreiberg, his chair hitched right up against his friend's bed, leaning over as if he were bending to impart an important secret.

One of his hands lay over the sleeping man's hand. His other hand was gently stroking his friend's hair and face. There was an expression of such open tenderness on his face that Jackie faltered, reluctant to intrude on such an obviously private moment. But the reality was that heartfelt bedside scenes like this weren't uncommon in a hospital, and she needed to leave on time today.

"Hey," she said quietly as she approached the bed. Dreiberg jumped and snatched his hand back from Walter's face, looking as guilty as if she'd caught him reaching under the other man's hospital gown.

"Hi, Dan." she said. "How are you holding up? I'm going home now, but I wanted to check on my way out and make sure that he's...that you're both all right."

He looked at her and nodded, but said nothing and remained seated in the chair by the bed as Jackie moved to check Walter's vitals. She thumbed his eyelids up to look at the pupils, and then plucked his medical chart off the foot of the bed.

As she perused the chart she glanced at Dreiberg to try and gauge how he was really doing. She hadn't missed how completely stunned he had looked and how white he'd gone earlier when he first walked in and saw Walter in the hospital bed. He still looked a little pale, and a shading of dark stubble was starting to show along his jawline. Jackie hung the chart back on the end of Walter's bed and looked sympathetically at the haggard young man.

"Dan, you've been here all day. Why don't you go home and get a little sleep? Maybe get something to eat, change your clothes?" Laying her hand lightly on his shoulder, she smiled at him. "I know you want to be here for him, but he's going to be completely out of it for a while. I guarantee to you that while he's sedated like this he doesn't know whether you're here or not. It won't hurt anything if you leave."

Dan shook his head, watching his friend's motionless body. The only sign of life was the slow, tidal rise and fall of Walter's chest. His gaze flicked up to her face for a moment, then returned to Walter. "I told him I wouldn't leave him here alone. I'm going to stay here until he wakes up."

Jackie was beginning to see at least one thing that these two had in common; stubbornness. "Okay, Dan, it's up to you. Just so you know, if you change your mind you can leave word at the nurses' desk for them to get in touch with you if there's any change in his condition. They _will_ call you right away."

His mouth tightened and she saw his expression turn mulish. _Definitely something they have in common,_ she thought. Responding as if he had read her mind, he said, “Look, ma'am…Jackie, I understand what you're saying. But you have to understand, I want to be the first person he sees when he wakes up. I promised that I wouldn’t leave him here unguarded, and I won’t."

"Unguarded?" Jackie frowned at him, not sure how ticked off she wanted to be about that. At the change in her tone, he looked up. His expression softened and turned apologetic as he said, "I'm sorry. I know that sounds like I don't trust you and the other people here to take care of him. That's not it at all; I know he’s in good hands here." He ran a hand through his hair distractedly, leaving bits of it sticking up in random directions.

"Look, I’m really sorry about the whole “I’ll sue you all” business. That was for his benefit." Dan's hand moved back to rest on Walter's again and he gave his friend a fond smile, looking at him a little sadly. "He really does think that if you don’t have a lot of money to wave around that a hospital will cut off the wrong thing, or, I don't know, sell your organs and donate your body to an anatomical class. Any hospital, not just this one."

Jackie nodded, mentally moving Walter up one notch on her internal index of 'potentially crazy and/or dangerous'. She also checked off another point on her list of reasons to warn the nursing staff to watch this dangerously strong and touchy little ginger very carefully if and when he woke up. "I see. Okay, that's good to know, Dan, I'm glad you told me."

He stood up and faced her, looking directly into her eyes. His expression intent, he spoke in a low voice, as if worried that Walter might hear him.

"I want you to be completely straight with me. How are--" His voice caught and he looked at the floor. After a moment he cleared his throat and raised his eyes to hers again and continued, his voice steady once more. "What are his chances, really? Do you think he's going to die?"

Jackie thought hard about how to respond, then sighed and told him the truth.

"Dan, I can't predict what's going to happen, but I'm not going to blue sky you. Walter is seriously ill. He has a massive internal infection and there is a chance that he won't recover. If you want me to give you odds, I can't do that, because it's too early. And some of what happens is going to be up to him." Seeing the stricken look in his eyes as he absorbed her words, she quickly added, "Actually a good part of it's up to him. And I'm betting that he's a fighter, am I right?"

Dan smiled a little ruefully and looked at Walter, nodding. “You have no idea.”

"That’s good, that's important. Good night, I'll see you sometime tomorrow. Get some sleep and have something to eat."

She left, and Dan got up to go call Hollis. But before he left the room he leaned down and squeezed Walter's shoulder, saying, "Buddy, I know you're not supposed to be able to hear me, but I'll be right back. I just have to go call Hollis."

At the door, Dan paused and looked back at his partner, finding it far harder than he'd expected to leave him alone. He knew very well that it was irrational, but he couldn't shake the feeling that if he left Walter unattended something bad would happen to him. Or, regardless of what the nurse had said about him being sedated and unaware, Walter would wake up and think that Dan had broken his word and abandoned him.

He shook himself. _Knock it off. She's right; he's not even going to know you left the room. And he's perfectly safe here. Stop being such a big schmo, Dreiberg, and go get some food and find a phone._

The cafeteria provided him with a couple of chicken salad on rye sandwiches, two cans of root beer, and a brown paper bag to carry them away in. The pay phones that he thought he remembered seeing near the emergency room entrance were indeed there.

He picked the one farthest away from the ER doors and dialed Hollis' number. It rang almost a dozen times before it was picked up and Mason's voice barked, " _Hello!_ " before it continued in a more normal tone.

"Mason's Auto Repair, can I help you?"

In the background Dan could hear faint traffic sounds and realized that Hollis must be out in the garage. "Hollis, it's Dan. Sorry to bother you like this, but---"

Hollis interrupted, the tone of his voice going instantly from slightly annoyed to pleased. "Dan! Don't be silly, you're never a bother. What can I do you for?" His voice became a bit sharper. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm at All Saints Hospital, Hollis. I'm fine, it's him."

Hollis didn't even bother to ask who he meant; there was only one person who Dan referred to simply as "him" with no other qualifiers. Instead, all he said was, "Shot or stabbed?"

"Neither. His appendix burst." Hollis whistled, but made no comment. Dan continued. "They operated on him this afternoon and he's…he's pretty sick, Hollis. He has blood poisoning."

Dan stopped and swallowed hard, because the sympathetic ear on the other end of the phone line made him want to blurt out to Hollis and confess the hollow rising fear that threatened to swamp him whenever he thought about going home from the hospital alone. When he was sure his voice would be steady again, he continued. "They say he's going to be in here for a while. He's asleep right now, they've got him doped up to the gills."

"Oh Danny, I'm sorry to hear that. Wait a minute…they couldn't have operated on him if he had his mask on. Does that mean--?"

"Yeah, it does. He's not wearing it."

Hollis was quiet at that and Dan wondered what he was thinking. He was about to ask if Hollis was still there when the older man spoke again.

"Huh. Well, I'm sure you wish it had happened differently, son, but I'm glad that you finally know what he looks like. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"There is, actually. I don't want to leave him alone here, Hollis. Could I possibly ask you to go by my place, please, and pick a few things up for me and bring them here? And I also need you to clear off my kitchen table, we left case notes spread out all over it."

He held his breath, anticipating reluctance on Hollis' part to drop everything and rush over to Dan's place because Hollis had obviously been working when he'd called. But Hollis, bless his heart, didn't hesitate for a moment, saying, "Don't be foolish, son. Did you forget that you're talking to an ex-cop here? Of course you want to stay there with him, he's your partner. I'd expect no less of you. And it's no bother at all."

Dan felt a surge of affection for his mentor and grinned. "Hollis you're a lifesaver, thank you. There's a bag upstairs in my closet. If you could pack a few days' worth of clothes and maybe toss in a couple of books, that would be great."

"No problem, Danny. Just give me an hour or so to get over to your place and pick up those things, and I'll be down to the hospital. Hmm." Hollis was quiet for a moment, then said, "Dan, where do you want to meet? I'm assuming that you don't want me to come up to his room."

Feeling a little sheepish, Dan said, "Hollis, it's not my secret to reveal, I'm sorry. I know you can be trusted, but it's still got to be up to him when and how you two meet face to face. I'm hoping that it'll be soon. Also, if you come inside the hospital it could get awkward if you run into any fans. Hang on, let me think." He looked around for likely rendezvous spots, than brightened.

"Hollis, there's a parking garage here. Why don't you meet me in there? I'll come down in an hour to look for you. It's not that big, it shouldn't be too hard to find each other."

"Sounds good, Dan. I'll see you soon." There was a pause, then he said, "Hey, Dan?"

"What, Hollis?"

"It's going to be all right."


	17. Chapter 17

Reminded yet again of just how much he loved the original Nite Owl, Dan smiled and some of the tension that had knotted his shoulders tight all day eased away, although apprehension still shadowed his eyes as he said, "I hope you're right, Hollis. See you soon."

Dan hung up and then hesitated, hand still on the receiver, as an impulse to call someone else took hold of him. After a moment, he snorted derisively and walked back into the hospital, shaking his head at himself. Really, it was ridiculous for a grown man of almost thirty to be thinking of calling his mother for reassurance. If Rorschach were awake, he'd surely have contempt for such a babyish impulse. Dan told himself that it was just the association of today's events with his adolescent memories of sitting in the waiting room with his mother after his father's heart failed that had made him think of it.

Anyway, his mother was traveling in Europe; had been, for the past six years. She had closed up the town house and left soon after Dan moved to New York, when it became apparent to all that he wasn't going to be moving back to Boston any time soon. Dan had no idea how to get in touch with her right now; he'd have to contact their family lawyer to get her current phone number.

A quick stop at the newsstand in the lobby provided Dan with a magazine, newspaper, and a Mars bar, after which he headed up to Walter's room. Once back in the room he gave his friend an apprehensive once-over, but it looked as if Walter hadn't moved during Dan's absence. Reassured that all was as well as he could expect it to be for now, Dan pulled his chair up next to Walter's bed and settled down to read his magazine.

The next hour and a half passed quietly. Dan ate the sandwiches and candy while flipping idly through his magazine. Every few minutes he glanced up from reading to check on Walter, watching for any change in his friend. But his partner remained frighteningly still; the slow rise and fall of his chest the only movement Dan could detect.

As he read and kept an eye on Walter, he couldn't help thinking about his mother again and wondering where she was right now. Dan had never blamed her for fleeing Boston after he'd moved to New York; the family's Beacon Hill residence must have seemed awfully empty after first her husband, then her son, had abandoned it (and her). It was really the best thing she could have done for herself. But sometimes, like now, Dan keenly missed being able to talk to her. He wondered if Walter had a mother or father, or other family who worried about him and resolved to do what he could to find out.

The more he thought about it, the more Dan felt that Walter must have kin somewhere who, estranged or not, should at least know that he was gravely ill in the hospital. His partner was still fairly young and people weren't raised in a vacuum; the odds were good that at least one of his parents was still alive, not to mention siblings, if any. Maybe the one good thing that might come of this, assuming Walter did get better, would be an opportunity to bring him back into closer touch with his family.

Sooner than he expected, it was time to go meet Hollis. Dan got up and brushed his fingertips lightly across Walter's vivid hair, reluctant to leave him alone again. Then he headed downstairs.

***

The parking garage was three levels; a ground level, one above that, and one below. Dan took a circuit of the ground level first, then flipped a coin to decide whether to search up or down next. Tails won, so he headed down the stairwell, his footsteps on the metal stairs ringing hollow echoes off of the concrete walls.

Halfway across the lower level, he spotted Hollis' car parked at the back of the garage facing the wall. As he approached, Dan saw Hollis' outline through the rear window and smiled as he watched Mason reach up and tilt the rear view mirror to give himself a better view of anyone approaching the car.

Hollis must have spotted Dan and said something to the car's other occupant, because a large canine head suddenly popped up from the passenger seat. Dan grinned as he watched Phantom climb across Mason's lap and poke his shaggy head out of the rolled-down window on the driver's side.

Hanging halfway out of the window, the big German Shepherd yipped a greeting as Dan walked up to the car. Dan could see the outline of his brushy tail wagging furiously. The tail was evidently smacking Hollis in the face as it wagged, because he heard Mason say something sharp and the car door opened, depositing the dog abruptly on the garage floor.

Unfazed, Phantom bounded up to Dan for a quick ear rub, a huge doggy grin on his face. Mason got out of the car and followed, dusting clumps of dog hair off himself and spitting out a few more for good measure as he approached Dan, who was petting a delighted Phantom.

" _Pffht._ I hate shedding season. You'd never believe so much hair could come off of one dog."

After having his ears sufficiently rumpled by Dan, Phantom wheeled and trotted off to inspect the cars parked nearby. Hollis whistled to get the shepherd's attention and gave him a hand signal that meant 'don't go too far'. Then he strode forward to grip Dan's hand and arm, squeezing hard. "Dan. You holding up all right? How is he, any change?"

Instead of answering, Dan watched Phantom sniff along the ground and pause to lift his leg over the tire of a Mercedes that was parked nearby. After exploring a little more, the shepherd seemed satisfied that the immediate area was safe and that no fascinating smells were there to be tracked and no villains lurked nearby to be discovered and routed. Tail waving, the dog returned to Hollis and briefly nosed his pockets to check for any animal crackers that might have materialized there while he was reconnoitering the area. Then he sat down on Hollis' foot with a sigh.

During all this, Hollis quietly watched Dan watching Phantom and waited patiently for Dan to respond. Finally, Dan sighed and reached out to scratch the dog's tawny head before speaking. "I'm okay, Hollis. He's..." Dan shrugged, "Asleep. They're going to keep him doped up and unconscious for a few days, to give him a better chance to fight the infection and heal." He stopped, looking unhappy, then reluctantly added, "It's probably a better idea than they realize. Sedating him is probably all that's keeping him from trying to escape."

Hollis nodded toward the car. "Come on, let's sit in the car and talk for a bit. I've got your stuff in the trunk."

Dan got in on the passenger side and sat down. Before opening the driver's door, Hollis opened the rear door and ordered Phantom in. After an obvious hesitation, the dog climbed into the back seat and flopped down with a sigh, giving Dan a reproachful look. Dan felt like he should apologize to the shepherd for usurping the shotgun seat next to Hollis.

Mason slid into the driver's seat and rubbed his chin, studying Dan thoughtfully before asking, "So why would your partner want to leave the hospital? It sounds like that's exactly where he needs to be right now." At Dan's confirming nod, he continued. "Right! So why does he want to escape? I know you told me once that he doesn't like people touching him, but these are doctors."

Dan folded his arms and sighed. "Because it turns out that one of the few things Rorschach's actually afraid of is hospitals. I don't mean just nervous, Hollis. I mean he's, I don't know, got a phobia about them. As soon as we got inside the doors, he started shaking and went white as a sheet. He was desperate to get out of there. I thought he was going to pass out in the front lobby."

A nervous, fatigued chuckle bubbled up in his throat. "The only reason I'm outside talking to you right now and not inside watching him is because I know he's sedated. If he was awake? By the time I got back to his room, he'd probably have already waylaid an orderly and stolen his uniform---busting his stitches open in the process, of course---and be two blocks away from the hospital, bleeding out in some alley."

Hollis raised his eyebrows at Dan, obviously not quite sure what to say to that. But the old man was nothing if not game, so after a moment he laid a comforting hand on Dan's shoulder and said, "Well, then, it sounds like he and the doctors are lucky to have you here, and that you're also exactly where you should be right now."

Dan shot him a grateful look and Hollis smiled at him before he continued. "Now, what did the doctors say about his condition, exactly?"

Dan's lips thinned and he looked down. "The doctor who operated on him said that his appendix ruptured at least a day ago, and that he has peritonitis. And the beginnings of blood poisoning. But she also said that he has a fighting chance, as long as the antibiotics can get a hold of his infection."

"She?"

"Oh. Yeah, the doctor who operated on him is a woman. Interesting, huh? Not too many lady surgeons around."

Hollis raised his eyebrows and said, "Well, you know, women's rights and all. I think we're going to see more and more of that, Dan, and it's a good thing." He looked pensive and Dan assumed he was thinking about Sally Jupiter. Then Hollis brightened and said, "At least you know that she's got to be good at what she does, to be a surgeon in a New York City hospital."

Dan nodded. "Good point, I agree." He smiled, "I'm sure Rorschach wasn't too crazy about having a woman operate on him, but after he knocked his first doctor unconscious, he really didn't have much of a choice about it."

Snorting back a laugh, Hollis said, "Can I ask what made him do that?"

"Rorschach felt that his physical exam got a little too personal. The doctor tried to examine him, uh," Dan paused, a little embarrassed, then brought his forefinger up to make an illustrative gesture before continuing, "internally...and Rorschach thought the guy was trying to do something, you know, funny to him. So naturally, being Rorschach, he..." Dan trailed off and pantomimed a punch. "Pop. Right in the face, K.O'd him flat with one punch, out colder than a mackerel."

Whistling, Hollis said, "All right, well, I'm starting to see what you mean about your needing to stay here and watch over him." Dan nodded again and stared gloomily through the windshield at the garage wall. Hollis' hand tightened on his shoulder.

"Dan, I have every confidence that your partner is going to stare this thing down and walk away from it. I haven't had the chance to really get to know him, but from what little I've seen of him and what you've told me, Rorschach is a very tough customer. You'll see. He'll be awake and on the mend in a few days, you mark my word."

Dan sucked in a deep breath and looked at his mentor. "Thanks, Hollis. Thanks for...well, just thanks." He drew in another slow breath, then let it out in a long, slow exhale. Voice hardening, he said, "Besides, he's going to _have_ to get better. Otherwise, it won't have nearly as much impact when I strangle him."

Ignoring Hollis' startled expression, Dan gritted his teeth as resentment that he hadn't even realized he'd been harboring up until now rose up and merged with his worry and fatigue to flare into anger. " _God_ , Hollis! I really could choke him right now. You know that he got the injury that probably made this happen _two days_ ago? The doctor said that his appendix probably ruptured sometime yesterday. That's why his peritonitis is so advanced, and why he developed blood poisoning."

Hollis wisely said nothing, obviously realizing that Dan was still picking up speed. Which he was.

"Hollis, he walked around for an entire day, went on _patrol_ , with a burst appendix. I mean, who does that?" Dan shook his head in sheer wonderment at his partner's stunning dearth of common sense when it came to his own welfare. (Not to mention his obvious lack of regard for the emotional well-being of others, particularly his long-suffering partner.)

"We got into a brawl Wednesday night and one of the guys he was fighting hit him really hard in the gut with a sledgehammer. I'm sure that's what caused it, the guy must have gotten him just right. You should see the bruise on his stomach, it's black and as big as my hand."

Dan clenched his fists and growled, "If he lives through this, assuming I don’t just strangle him, I'm going to damn well sit on him until he agrees to let me line that coat of his with some kind of armor."


End file.
